


black swan

by soulofme



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Temporary Character Death, Endgame Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Established Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Grief/Mourning, Guess who’s back, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, One-Sided Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Pining Ryou (Voltron), back again, i'm sure there's a legit name for that but it escapes me at the moment, unhealthy means of getting over someone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-08-05 23:16:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16376912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulofme/pseuds/soulofme
Summary: After the Kerberos mission results in his brother’s death, Ryou seeks comfort in Keith Kogane, the boy who had been helplessly in love with Takashi.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *insert shrug emoji here*

Ryou’s sitting outside of a dirty convenience store, drinking coffee that’s more grounds than anything when he sees _him_.

Keith Kogane. Takashi’s little charity project, the spitfire of the freshman cadets. Back before Ryou dropped out of the Garrison, in those days where he swore up and down he wanted to follow in his big brother’s footsteps, he heard stories. They’d be passed around at lunch like contraband, whispered into ears and always, _always_ punctuated with a gasp.

People said Keith killed a man, that he’d slit your throat clean across if you looked at him funny. They warned their friends not to piss him off, that if you ever saw him in the hallway you should keep your head down and not say a goddamn word.

Takashi said it was bullshit. He got so fired up about it. You couldn’t say a bad thing about Keith if Takashi was around. He’d rip your throat out, tell you to mind your own business. Takashi said Keith couldn’t hurt a fly, that he was a good kid who just needed someone to see his potential.

Ryou doesn’t have an opinion on the kid, to be frank. He’s seen him but never bothered to talk to him. There wouldn’t have been anything to say.

But now, now he whistles in Keith’s direction. Sees how the kid stops right in his tracks, plastic bag slung around one wrist, empty hand shoved deep into his pocket.

He doesn’t say anything. Just stares, stares right at Ryou. Ryou grins, slow and even.

“Hey,” he calls.

Keith shuffles forward.

“You’re Shiro’s brother, right?” he asks. Says it, though, like he knows damn well what he’s talking about.

Ryou sets his cup down, leans back on his hands and pretends to size Keith up. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t shift like he’s uncomfortable. He meets Ryou’s gaze head on, a silent challenge in his dark eyes.

It’s thrilling, to say the least. Ryou shrugs and feigns disinterest.

“You’re Takashi’s little friend, aren’t you?” he shoots back.

That rouses a scowl from Keith. He crosses his arms over his chest.

“Heard you washed out.”

“Yeah?” Ryou snorts. “That’s old news.”

“Sure, I guess.”

“There can only be one Shirogane,” Ryou declares, a touch dramatic. Keith raises an unamused brow. “Someone’s gotta be the black sheep.”

Keith looks thoughtful for a second, like whatever Ryou’s said means a whole lot to him. Ryou gives the kid his time, busies himself with counting the cigarette butts pooled around his feet.

“Did you want it?” Keith asks. Ryou barely conceals a laugh.

“I don’t know what the fuck I want.”

Keith doesn’t say anything. His eyebrow crinkles just so, something so small that Ryou would’ve missed if it he hadn’t been staring straight at him.

“See you,” Keith mumbles then, moving like he’s outstayed his welcome.

He hasn’t.

“Wait.”

Keith pauses, already turned around, halfway into a step.

“You got somewhere to be?” Ryou can tell that Keith doesn’t.

“No. Not really.”

 _Bingo_.

Ryou grins again, wide and easy as anything, and pats the spot next to him in invitation.

“Take a seat. Shoot the shit.”

Keith looks like he’d rather do anything but that, but he sits down anyway. Stiff, like he’s planning an escape route in his head. Ryou wouldn’t blame him if that’s the case. People don’t usually stick around for him. He’s not Takashi, all charming and inviting and goddamn _great_.

He doesn’t resent his brother for that. No way. They balance each other. Takashi is the golden child and Ryou is the pedestal he sits on. It’s fine, really. Ryou knows his place.

Keith’s jiggling his leg, clutching that plastic bag tight around the handle. He’s got his phone in the other hand, clicks the screen on and looks at it. Turns it off. Clicks it back on. Over, over, and over.

So Ryou says, “You waiting for something?”

“No,” Keith says. Too quick, too defensive.

Ryou lounges back again, rolls his shoulders and hums some shitty pop song he heard on the radio last night. Something generic but infectiously catchy, per usual.

Keith cuts him a glance after a few minutes. Ryou jerks his chin towards the bag.

“What’s up with that?”

“Nothing.”

Ryou snorts. “You don’t talk much, do you?”

Keith glares at him, now. It’s then that Ryou sees it, the purple bruise blooming on his cheek. He whistles lowly and leans in to get a closer look. Keith gets all stiff again, sits ramrod straight like that’ll somehow keep Ryou at bay.

“Is that nothing too?”

“Shut the hell up,” Keith mutters, with all the fire that Ryou’s heard he’s got stored up in him.

“You just gonna walk around with that?”

“What does it matter?”

“Well,” Ryou pauses, considering. “What if someone sees?”

“I don’t care.”

“Not even if it’s Takashi?”

Ryou doesn’t know why he says it. It just happens, the words rolling off his tongue like they’re meant to. It’s worth it, though, to see the way Keith shows an emotion other than boredom or irritation. He looks straight up worried, like the thought of Ryou’s precious big brother catching him skulking around with a bruise the size of Jupiter is the most horrific thing he can imagine.

“I don’t care,” Keith says after an eternity, slower and with more force than before.

Ryou shrugs it off, but he can see the flames flickering in Keith’s eyes when he speaks.

* * *

He doesn’t see Keith again, for a while. He does what he’s been doing since he dropped out of school: wakes up late, stays out even later. He drinks and parties, presses his fingers into a different stranger every night, hoping and praying that he’ll find one that sticks, someone that feels right.

He doesn’t. He’s fine with it, really. Thinks, sudden and all at once, that it isn’t fair that Takashi’s found someone, even if Ryou still thinks there’s something off about that Adam guy.

He finds out on a sunny November afternoon that his big brother’s getting married. Takashi popped the question, Adam said yes, and now everyone’s happy. Takashi invites him over for dinner to celebrate the big news.

So Ryou puts aside a night of debauchery to celebrate someone other than himself. He shows up to Takashi’s shoebox apartment with the best wine he can get on such short notice. He doesn’t expect to see Keith sitting at the dining table when Takashi lets him inside, arms crossed and staring down at an empty plate.

“Adam’s running a little late, but he’ll be here soon,” Takashi says. He looks a little flushed, but at least the house smells nice. Nothing’s burned and everything’s edible, hopefully.

“Hey, kid,” Ryou calls once he’s got his shoes off.

Keith’s head shoots up, eyes all wide like he’s surprised to see Ryou here. Funny, since Ryou being around is less surprising than Keith. But hey, whatever. He lets it slide and plops into the seat beside Keith, groaning exaggeratedly.

“God, I’m fucking starving.”

“Hey,” Takashi pipes up from the kitchen, sharp and all warning.

“What?” Ryou shoots back, tilting his head towards Keith and giving him a once over. “Kid’s heard worse, I’m sure.”

“My name’s not kid,” Keith snarks, all venom.

Takashi doesn’t chastise him, which, honestly, _rude_.

“Right,” Ryou amends. “My bad, _Keith_.”

Keith’s face screws up strangely, but before he can another word the door opens and Adam announces his presence with a loud _I’m home!_

There’s something terribly domestic about the way Takashi abandons whatever’s bubbling on the stove to greet Adam with a kiss. Ryou turns towards Keith, ready to make some childish gagging noises to get a laugh or something out of the kid, but stops short when he sees Keith’s expression.

He looks heartbroken, like his whole world has shattered before him. He physically winces when the soft _welcome home, I’m so happy to see you_ comes floating to them in Takashi’s soft, gentle voice.

It clicks then, and Ryou feels his jaw begin to drop. He snaps it shut when Keith clears his throat awkwardly and gives Adam a feeble greeting that seems even more pathetic when Ryou imagines that devasted look on his face again.

“Well, look who decided to show up,” Ryou teases, pushing all thoughts of Keith out of his mind.

Adam smiles politely at him. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Hey, Ryou,” he says. Turns to Keith and goes, “Oh, Keith! I didn’t know you’d be joining us.”

“Yeah, well,” Keith gets out, fumbles over the words and cuts himself off with a shrug.

Adam brushes it off with another smile, far more plastic than the first.

“The more the merrier!” he declares, and it gets a laugh out of Takashi.

Ryou looks at the kid again, who ducks his gaze as soon as their eyes meet. Keith’s staring off at something to the side, arms crossed over his chest. It’s not defensive like it usually is, looks more like he’s trying to protect himself than anything, and Ryou would be lying if he said it didn’t make his heart ache just a _bit_.

Adam settles in and Takashi serves dinner. Ryou can’t even remember what it is, something about mushrooms and gravy and chicken. It tastes good. More decent than what Takashi usually serves up.

The conversation flits from everyone’s days to the engagement to the happy couple’s future plans. Keith, bless his heart, takes it all in stride. Laughs when it’s appropriate and doesn’t make it obvious that he doesn’t give a fuck, not like he’s technically _supposed_ to.

Eventually though, Takashi has to say something. Too perceptive, too kind for his own good Takashi says something like, _hey, Keith, are you okay?_

And Keith, too hurt, too in love with Takashi for his own good Keith, says:

“Yeah. I think I just need some air.”

He deposits his napkin on his mostly-full plate and escapes to the balcony. Takashi’s already on his feet, but Adam puts a hand on his and says something too low for Ryou to catch.

“Ryou,” Takashi starts, pleading, eyes big, and Ryou swallows down the nastiest curse he can think of.

Keith’s hunched over the railing, head dropped low between his shoulders. Ryou announces his presence with the clearing of his throat and waits for Keith to turn around to face him before he speaks.

“You’re in love with him.”

No _are you doing okay_ or _hey, what happened back there?_

Ryou doesn’t care about that. Not when he’s got Keith Kogane, Keith gives-no-fucks Kogane in front of him, pining after his brother like a lovesick teenager. Which, for all purposes, is exactly what Keith _is_.

He’s young and lost and _in love_.

Ryou tries to put himself in Keith’s shoes. Thinks back, way back, to the first time he thought he loved someone. He was fifteen and she was his neighbor. She was beautiful and funny and always made time for him. But she didn’t love Ryou. Not how he wanted her to.

So, maybe, he gets Keith. He gets that there’s probably jealousy coursing in his veins, something thick and hot that he wishes he could ignore but can’t. He gets that Keith probably stays up late at night, hoping for something more than a pat on the shoulder but never getting it anywhere but in his dreams.

He _gets_ it.

“It’s not like that,” Keith insists then, all indignant.

“Yeah. I’m sure it’s not.”

“Fuck you,” Keith grits. He’s getting defensive, getting _scared_ that the cat’s out of the bag.

“I’m not the one you want,” Ryou replies, unaffected. “Right?”

Keith swallows hard, hard enough that Ryou watches his Adam’s apple bob. Inside, he can hear Takashi and Adam laughing. But Ryou doesn’t pay them any attention. He focuses on Keith to the point that his world narrows down to nothing but him.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You know,” Ryou drawls, “I don’t really believe you when you say that.”

Keith sucks in a breath and grips the railing hard.

“Go back inside.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Give me one good reason why I should,” Ryou says. Leans in all close, close enough that he’s breathing against the side of Keith’s face. The kid turns his face away, probably to sulk at something other than the ground beneath them.

“Because I want you to.”

“Not good enough,” Ryou declares.

And then, he does the craziest thing. He presses his lips to Keith’s, hard enough that their teeth click. And Keith makes this sound, something all low like he’s being wounded, like Ryou’s choking him instead of kissing him.

But he doesn’t push Ryou away. He curls his fingers in Ryou’s shirt like he wants to rip it to shreds.

Ryou would bet his left kidney that Keith’s thinking about Takashi, forcing himself to pretend it’s Takashi’s mouth against his. Doesn’t matter that Takashi’s got six inches and twenty pounds on Ryou, or that Takashi’s got a plush mouth and Ryou doesn’t, or that Takashi is wonderfully perfect and Ryou is decidedly _not_.

Keith pulls away first, scrubbing furiously at his mouth like he wants to erase this, erase _Ryou_.

“I don’t want this,” Keith says. The words are quiet, watery and thin, uncertain just like the look on his face.

“It’s not about what you want,” Ryou tells him, because that’s the goddamn truth. “It never is.”

Keith goes stiff again, gets this sharp glare like he wants to argue. But then he stops, and his shoulders slump, and Ryou recognizes the exact moment the fight leaves his body.

Keith says, “Okay.”

And Ryou wishes it didn’t feel as good as it does.


	2. Chapter 2

There’s a man beneath Ryou, a man with black, black hair and red, red lips. He sounds soft and pretty, and his lithe fingers coil into Ryou’s hair and _pull_ _._ He's a spitfire who had caught Ryou's attention the second he stepped out onto the dancefloor. They messed around a little bit before he'd bit the lobe of Ryou's ear and asked,  _wanna go somewhere more private_?

It was a terribly overused line, but that didn't mean Ryou had objected.

This guy is the fuck of the night, the lucky winner Ryou decided was good enough to bring home. Nothing but a partner in a mindless dance that’ll end with a number scrawled on the back of an old grocery receipt.

A number Ryou will throw out without even looking at, probably.

He shoves the thought away, crashes his lips to _Pretty Boy’s_ until he moans and draws blood. It’s sharp, tastes on this side of _too much_ , but Ryou chases it. Chases it like the last drop of beer clinging to his bottle, or the feelings he wishes he could have, or the dreams he let crumble in the dust.

Pretty Boy does something then, digs his heels into the base of Ryou’s spine and _tugs_ , joining their hips together with a harsh smack. And Ryou, overwhelmed, feeling too goddamn much, closes his eyes and moans:

“ _Keith_.”

Time slows and stops. Pretty Boy unhooks his legs, lays flat on Ryou’s plush mattress like a starfish. Stares at him, full mouth dropped open, dark eyes bugging and wide.

“What the fuck?” he asks, scrambling up. Ryou slips out of him—too fast, too much—with a hiss.

“What?” Ryou asks, chest heaving, sweat matting the hair at his nape.

The man shakes his head, slips out of the bed and starts gathering up his clothes. He starts laughing then, bitter and loud, and Ryou nearly cringes at the sound.

“Look,” he says, facing Ryou as he tugs on his shirt and boxers. “You keep saying that guy’s name.”

“What?” Ryou says again, his entire face feeling numb as he reaches back into his mind. “Who?”

Pretty Boy’s face screws up with disgust.

“Keith,” he spits. He tugs his jeans on and then stops, stares at Ryou and gets a hand on his hip. “What, are you trying to get over your ex or something?”

“He’s not—” Ryou starts, tongue too thick in his mouth. He swallows hard and tries again. “It’s not like that.”

Pretty Boy gives him a sympathetic look then, the anger seeming to bleed out of his body. He releases a long, heavy sigh.

“Fucking strangers isn’t gonna help you cope.”

“What the—I’m not trying to _cope_ with anything!” Ryou snaps, his blood boiling in his veins.

Pretty Boy snorts and snatches a scrap of paper off the nightstand. He writes something on it and crumples it into a ball, one that he aims at Ryou’s forehead and snickers at when it bounces clean off.

“Get some help,” he says.

And then he’s gone, the door slamming upon his exit. Ryou drags the comforter over himself and collapses onto the bed. The sheets smell like sweat and stick to his body. All the arousal has left him, leaving him feeling uncomfortably unsatisfied.

He reaches for the piece of paper, uncrumpling it and giving it a once over.

_Akira. XXX-XXX-XXXX._

Ryou snorts and tosses it aside.

He settles on his side, repeating Akira’s words to himself. He said Keith’s name.

He _moaned_ Keith’s name.

The thought should disgust him. He shouldn’t be thinking of Takashi’s little protégé, especially not when he’s in bed.

“Fuck,” Ryou mutters, dragging a hand down his face.

He hasn’t seen the kid since Takashi’s dinner. Sometimes, when he least expects it, he thinks of those lips against his. It scares him, how much he fixates on it. He’s gotta be sick, fucked-up beyond belief. He doesn’t give a shit about Keith Kogane. He shouldn’t.

It’s the alcohol, Ryou tells himself, that makes him get up and pull his clothes on. It’s the alcohol that makes him drive to the Garrison, even though he told himself he’d rather die than ever show up there again.

It doesn’t take long to find Keith. The kid’s out by the field, wrapping a length of gauze around his knuckles. His face isn’t bruised this time, but his knuckles are torn and red.

“I guess you won.”

Keith starts at the words, his eyes flashing bright and wide. His expression dulls as soon as he realizes it’s Ryou.

“What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you.”

Ryou settles beside Keith on the bleachers, ignoring how Keith grunts when their knees knock together hard.

“For what?” Keith mutters, tying the gauze off. He tosses the rest of the back onto his bag and leans back on his hands. “Shiro called you or something?”

“What?” Ryou asks, confused.

“He’s disappointed in me,” Keith drawls, slow and lazy. “Said he saw firsthand what happened to people who went down the wrong path.”

“What—so you thought he was talking about me?”

Keith snorts, sweeping an arm out dramatically.

“You see any other pathetic fuckers around here?”

“Fuck you,” Ryou answers on reflex.

Keith’s smile is cruel when he says, “You _wish_ you could.”

Ryou clenches his jaw hard enough to hurt. Wishes he had a rebuttal, something that would wipe that cocky smirk right off this kid’s face. But he doesn’t, because a small part of him knows that’s the fucking truth.

“Why do you even care that much about him?” Ryou spits, aiming to hit whatever soft spot he _can_. “He’s not gonna give a shit about you after this. He’s gonna go off to space and forget all about his little lost puppy.”

“You’re wrong,” Keith says. His face is set and determined, but he gives himself away with the unsure look in his eyes.

Ryou wants to feel triumphant, proud that he’s playing off of Keith’s weakness. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t feel a goddamn thing.

“I bet you wish it was him that night, right?” Ryou asks, leaning close and getting all into the kid’s space. “Bet you wish it was him kissing you, touching you like he wanted you. But it was _me_. I’m the closest you’re ever gonna get to him, Kogane.”

Keith meets his gaze dead on. It’s hard to tell what kind of expression is on his face, what he might be thinking deep down inside. But Ryou just _knows_ that he’s got him right where he wants him.

“ _You_ kissed _me_ ,” Keith mutters after a few tense seconds. “Don’t forget that.”

And then he’s up, grabbing his bag and storming off. Ryou leans back against the fence behind the bleachers, exhaling sharply. He rakes a hand through his hair and counts to ten, does anything to remind himself that Keith’s just fucking with him, that none of this really means a damn thing.

It doesn’t work, though, and Ryou drops his head back.

“ _Fuck_!”

* * *

 

“You sure you’re okay?”

Takashi jumps at the question. They’re seated in a booth at a family diner halfway between the Garrison and the city where Ryou spends his time getting drunk out of his mind. It’s their thing. Kinda. Really, it only happens because Takashi insists upon it. Brotherly duties or whatnot. Ryou’s sure he just wants to make sure he’s not dead.

“Oh, yeah,” Takashi says after a long moment. It doesn’t sound nearly as convincing as he tries to make it.

“Bullshit.”

Takashi scowls, just slightly, but enough that Ryou grins at it.

“C’mon, what happened?”

“They’re, uh, considering me for Kerberos,” Takashi says, and Ryou’s stomach falls out beneath him.

He swears he misheard that. There’s no way his brother’s going to the other side of the universe. No _fucking_ way. He’s heard of the Kerberos mission. It’d been proposed even when Ryou was still at the Garrison. An exploratory expedition to flash humanity’s ability to invade every damn inch of the galaxy.

“You’re shitting me,” Ryou says flatly. Takashi looks almost guilty, but then he sits up straight and clears his throat.

“This mission will be good for me.”

“Takashi, you’re fucking insane,” Ryou snarls, slamming his hand down onto the table. “You’re—you’re fucking _sick_!”

Takashi doesn’t flinch, doesn’t give any indication that he’s heard. He shakes his head like he’s rejecting Ryou’s words.

“If I don’t this, they’ll never give me a chance ever again,” Takashi says, his voice low and even. “I’ll be proving them right.”

“Fuck what they think!” Ryou insists. “What if something happens to you? You think the _Garrison_ is gonna cover your ass? Huh?”

Takashi levels him with a sharp look, one that would’ve had Ryou cowering in his seat if they were still kids and he was still vying for his big brother’s approval.

“I’m doing this, Ryou. I have to.”

“You’re fucked,” Ryou growls. He shakes his head, curling his hands into fists. “And what about Adam? He’s gonna let you fly away there?”

Takashi’s face falls and Ryou just _knows_.

“So you’re just going to do whatever the hell you want?” Ryou mumbles. He shakes his head, ignoring the tell-tale heat that pricks behind his eyelids. 

“Ryou,” Takashi begins, his voice strained. “I really need you to support me on this.”

He reaches across the table for Ryou’s hand, grips it tight enough to bruise. He sees the desperation in Takashi’s eyes, the silent plea for him to just go along with this, just this once. Between the two of them, Takashi’s the careful one. He makes sure everything’s in place, that he’s following every rule even if it doesn’t make sense. It’s why everyone at the Garrison loves him.

Loves him enough to give him a death sentence.

There’s a particular instance that comes to the forefront of Ryou’s a mind, an instance he finds himself going back to even though it’s been years. When their parents died in that car wreck, Ryou had been too young to understand. He was five. Five-year-olds didn’t understand that Mom and Dad being _dead_ meant they had to go live with Grandpa.

But Takashi got it. Maybe because he was five years older, or maybe because Takashi always understood everything. Ryou remembers how his brother had pulled him aside after the funeral, crouched down in front of him and held his hands in his somewhat bigger ones.

“ _Don’t be scared_ ,” Takashi had said, paired with a wide smile that made Ryou’s anxiety practically melt away. “ _I’m going to be right beside you. No matter what._ ”

Ryou repeats those words to himself more than he’d like to admit, even though he’s twenty years old and doesn’t need his big brother’s protection anymore. A part of him still relies on Takashi, still assumes that his brother’s going to be waiting for him with open arms at the end of the day.

But Takashi can’t do that now. Now he’s sick.

Now he’s sick, and being shipped off to the other side of the galaxy, and Ryou’s supposed to be _okay_ with it.

Ryou rips his hand away, doesn’t linger long enough to see the shocked expression he’s sure is on Takashi’s face.

“I can’t,” he says, not even embarrassed by how horribly his voice cracks. “Not this time.”

He storms off like a kid, dramatic enough that the other patrons in the diner turn as he stomps by. Ryou doesn’t give a shit. Can’t, really. Not when it feels like his entire world is crashing down.

There’s a place out in the desert, some abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere. Ryou had been zipping along on his hoverbike, back when he was on the Garrison’s good-side and they had provided him with a means for running all of their stupid errands. There was a tracker on it, one that was supposed to signal a commanding officer when he got too far past Garrison “boundaries” or something like that.

He’d been testing it, toeing the line like he always did. He’d found that shack by accident, but it became the only place where he felt at home. He showed Takashi it once, and after a while it became _their_ safe place. The place where ranks and titles and everything frustratingly _Garrison_ melted away. There, they were two brothers who only had each other, who could rely on the other for everything under the sun.

He goes there now because nothing calms him down like it. Not the drinking or the sex or his lovely little penthouse out in the city. That shack’s the only thing that makes him feel alive most days, and Ryou clings to it like it’s his last dying breath.

By the time he bursts through the door, he’s got tears streaming down his face. He grabs the broom by the door and sets to work sweeping out the sand, keeping his hands busy in an attempt to get his mind to forget.

It’s funny how he thinks of Keith now, how he just pops into his brain without any warning. Does Keith know that Takashi’s going to be ripped from his life? Or is he just going to be blindsided like Ryou?

He doesn’t know why he finds himself wishing, almost _praying_ , that Keith will be spared from that. That Takashi will tell him gently, maybe even say that he’ll come back. It’s the least he can do, for being so goddamn wonderful that Keith’s invariably gone for him.

After all, Keith doesn’t _want_ Ryou. He wants _Takashi_. And if Takashi fucks that up, makes a promise he can’t keep to Keith, well…

Ryou’ll kill him if Kerberos doesn’t.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two chapters in one day because i'm really invested in this story lmao

Time marches on after Takashi gets picked for Kerberos.

He and Adam split, for one. Something about not waiting or whatever. Takashi had powered through half a bottle of Jack before he puked it all up onto Ryou’s plush white carpet. He’d been too busy trying to piece his big brother together to give a damn.

Takashi had moved out of the place he shared with Adam. He’s living with Ryou now, which is fine and all until Ryou brings someone home. That’s when Takashi excuses himself with a bag of laundry or a pile of books and escapes to the basement of Ryou’s complex. He does his best, really, but the mood is beyond soiled by then.

Keith gets testy. More fights, more marks on his record. The worst is when he nearly beats another cadet to death. Griffin or something like that. Takashi comes home that day, frustrated to tears. He believes in Keith even when everyone wants to give up on him.

They talk a lot about Keith, actually. Takashi brings him up often, often enough that Ryou feels like a jackass for telling Keith Takashi would forget all about him. Takashi seems incapable of doing that. He thinks Keith is just another little brother he picked up along the way, another soul to care for even though Takashi can hardly take care of himself most days.

His disease gets worse. The Garrison slaps some bracelet on him, something to make sure he isn’t going to keel over on them before they get off Earth. Ryou hates it, hates how they can be eating dinner and Takashi will flip his wrist over to check it, make sure he’s still as golden as everyone expects him to be.

Tonight, everything’s quiet between them. It’s the night before Kerberos, actually, and Ryou pushes his rice around on his plate. Beef teriyaki. Takashi’s favorite.

It’s too salty, the rice is too hard, everything tastes _wrong_. Ryou shoves his plate away and downs his glass of water. Takashi takes slow, measured bites.

“Does Keith know?”

“What?” Takashi looks at him for the first time tonight. He’s confused, of course, but Ryou goes on.

“You told him, right?”

“Of course I did,” Takashi says, sounding the slightest bit on edge. “Why wouldn’t I have?”

“He cares a lot about you, Takashi,” Ryou says. He tells himself he’s edging too far into territory that he can’t touch, but he doesn’t know how to stop himself.

Maybe, just maybe, it’ll get Takashi to _stay_. Maybe he’ll realize this mission is a death sentence and will value himself over others for once.

“I know,” Takashi says, expression softening. “I care about him too. But Keith’ll be fine. I know he will.”

“And if he’s not?” Ryou snarks, helpless to the anger that simmers in the pit of his stomach. “Who’s gonna take care of him then?”

“Well,” Takashi says, natural as anything, “he has you, right?”

Ryou stops. Stops breathing, blinking, _thinking_. Keith has Ryou. Keith has _him_.

But Ryou doesn’t have Keith. Not ever. Not even when there’s a piece of him, a piece that gets steadily bigger each day, a piece that longs for him.

“I can’t,” Ryou mumbles. “He’s not—I can’t, Takashi.”

Takashi sets his chopsticks down delicately. Ryou watches him and swallows hard, shakes his head to clear it and sucks in a breath.

“I’m not always going to be around, Ryou,” he says slowly. Ryou snorts.

“That’s not what you said. Not when we were kids.”

Takashi bites his lower lip, clearly deep in thought.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. But I want this. Everything I’ve been doing has been leading to this.”

“I know, Takashi,” Ryou says, voice rough. “I just…I just wish it wasn’t _now_.”

Takashi reaches for him across the table. Ryou holds onto his brother desperately, nails digging crescents into the back of Takashi’s hands.

“It’s alright,” Takashi says soothingly. “You’re going to be fine. I know you are.”

Ryou presses his forehead to their clasped hands.

“I hope you’re right,” he whispers.

* * *

 

The morning of the launch, Takashi gets up early. He runs around the block and comes back an hour before they have to leave.

They shower, eat breakfast, talk about trivial things they’ll both forget. Ryou drives Takashi to the launch and feels like there’s a hand around his heart, one that squeezes tighter and tighter.

He doesn’t know how to feel when he sees Keith standing off to the side, far away from Colleen Holt and her daughter.

Colleen approaches them as soon as they get out of the car. She wraps Takashi in a hug, tells him he’s going to be great out there. Most of all, she tells him to come back safely.

Takashi goes to talk to Matt, leaving Ryou with Colleen. She smiles at him and reaches for his hand, wrapping it up in her own.

“He’s going to be fine,” she promises fiercely. “Don’t worry about a thing. Your brother is the best pilot the Garrison’s ever seen.”

“I know,” Ryou says, uneasy when he should be proud. He shakes the feeling off. “Sorry. I’ve got to talk to someone.”

He jerks his chin towards Keith. Colleen releases him with another smile. Ryou inhales deeply and shoves his hands into his pockets, shuffling over to where Keith is.

He has his arms crossed over his chest. He doesn’t look up at Ryou, not even when he comes to a stop beside him and they’re standing side by side.

“I didn’t think I’d see you here.”

Keith glances at him from the corner of his eye.

“Iverson said he didn’t want me sulking around.”

Ryou snickers. “How generous of him.”

Keith clears his throat and faces the spacecraft again.

“What are you doing here?”

“Seeing my brother off, obviously.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

The look Keith gives him then is probing. Ryou’s mouth goes dry and he shakes his head.

“He’s not going to be around to clean up your messes.”

“I don’t need him to be.”

“But you need him.”

Keith sinks his teeth into his lower lip, clenches one hand into a tight fist. He turns his face away from Ryou, probably to glare at the ground or something.

“Shut the fuck up.”

“You’re not the only one afraid you’re gonna lose him.”

Keith relaxes in tiny increments at that. First his hand, then his shoulders, and finally, the mask of indifference on his face comes crumbling down.

“I’m not doubting him,” he says, hastily and all at once. “I’m just—”

“Scared?”

“Yeah,” Keith admits, barely louder than a whisper. “I’m fucking terrified.”

“I am too,” Ryou says. “But you’re not alone.”

Keith laughs, soft but without any humor.

“I’m not afraid of being alone, you know.”

“Oh, I know. But you’re afraid of not having Takashi.”

Ryou can see how Keith hesitates then, probably torn between denying it or saying nothing at all. He settles on the latter, re-crossing his arms and burning holes into the spacecraft with his eyes.

“Takashi’s the best at everything he does,” Ryou continues. “Especially piloting. If he doesn’t come back, well…I guess we’ll have to drag him home ourselves.”

Keith breathes out a laugh again, more genuine than the first. He meets Ryou’s eyes and they’re softened, warm even with all of his rough edges. Ryou wonders distantly if Takashi has ever been on the other end of such a look and figures he has. Probably never realized it for what it was, though.

Something ugly crawls up his throat at that thought, of Takashi and Keith together in one sentence. It’s childish, how jealous he is, but he can’t stop himself. Not when Keith is close enough that Ryou can practically smell him, something like soap and uniquely _Keith_.

Not when Keith will forever be just at Ryou’s fingertips, close enough to touch but not to have.

“Thank you,” Keith murmurs. Ryou nearly misses it, but he bundles those words up, hides them away somewhere safe, somewhere where he can visit them again later.

Takashi comes up then. It’s time to go. They hug and bid him farewell, and Ryou tries not to die inside when he sees how Keith’s fingers dig into Takashi’s shoulders. Thinks to himself that they kind of look perfect, the poster children for relationships that people die without ever experiencing but always wish they _could_.

And then, just like magic, Takashi’s gone. It’s like Ryou imagined him for the past twenty years, like Takashi was some beautiful dream his mind constructed. He turns to Keith, Keith who…

 _Takes his breath away_.

His stomach swoops. He’s beautiful, even though he’s got tears pooled in his eyes, even though he’s in love with Takashi, even though he’ll never give a damn about Ryou.

Keith looks at him, watery eyes, openly vulnerable, and Ryou _aches_.

“Now what?” he asks, voice cracking, soft, broken just like his expression.

“I don’t know,” Ryou answers, and it’s a truth so painful that it cuts.

* * *

 

It doesn’t take long for everything to go to shit.

Ryou doesn’t remember what he’s doing when he sees the words.

Pilot error. Kerberos. No survivors.

He’s storming into the Garrison before he can stop and think about it. No matter that he’s been kicked out, probably banned for life because Iverson can hold a nasty grudge when he wants to. He’s about to pound on his office door, ready to chew him out, when Keith is dragged out.

He looks crazed. Won’t stop shouting, even when the officers tighten their grip around his arm. There’s blood, so much blood on his fist. Somewhere between the bloodcurdling screams he’s sobbing, crumpling down to his knees and curling up on himself.

Ryou pushes past the officers, wraps his arms around Keith. When the officers reach for Keith again he presses Keith’s cheek against his collarbone.

“Don’t touch him!” he says, his voice hoarse. He presses his face to the top of Keith’s head, rocks them back and forth.

Keith clutches the front of his shirt. His tears soak the fabric. It feels like he’s going to rip it clean from Ryou’s body.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispers, stumbling over the words. He tangles his fingers in Keith’s hair and holds tight. It’s the only thing grounding him. He can’t feel how numb his knees are, only focuses on every inch of him that’s in contact with Keith.

He doesn’t remember getting up from the ground. Somehow they end up in Keith’s room, and he stands against the wall and watches as Keith shoves all his shit into garbage bags. He follows Ryou out to the car and throws everything into the backseat. Sits in the front seat without an invitation, like he belongs there, and doesn’t say a damn word.

Ryou gets into the driver’s seat, pushes the key into the ignition and turns it. His entire body feels weak, like every motion will push him over the edge.

“Where are we going?” Keith asks him. Doesn’t look at him. Just stares out of the windshield blankly.

“Home,” Ryou rasps. Doesn’t stop to think about the words. Just goes and goes.

Keith doesn’t react when they get to the shack. Ryou gets out and pushes the door, sweeps the sand out like he always does. Checks the fridge. Bread. Beans in the cabinet. Enough for dinner.

Keith stumbles in after what feels like an eternity. He stands in the doorway, his eyes roaming over everything. They linger on the back wall, where Takashi and Ryou had studded the bulletin board with a shit ton of pictures. Silly ones, serious ones, pictures of the sky and their feet and every goddamn thing under the sun.

Ryou sets the broom down. They stare at each other.

“He promised,” Keith says.

The words hang between them. Ryou bites at the inside of his cheek, hard enough that he bleeds. Keith stares at him, waiting for an answer, waiting for an explanation, but there’s nothing Ryou can say.

“I know.”

Keith looks like he might collapse again, so Ryou steps forward, hands out to catch him. He gets Keith around the elbows and waits for him to push him off, to shove him away.

He doesn’t. He’s still for a moment, and then he reaches up. Presses his fingers into Ryou’s shoulders, just like he had to Takashi.

“Touch me,” he whispers.

Ryou jolts at the words. He feels heavy, like he’s floating dead out in the middle of the ocean, like he might sink at any moment.

“I can’t,” he says, and he’s tired of how many times he's been saying that.

“Touch me,” Keith says again, with feeling, and he crushes their lips together.

And Ryou, god, he wants to stop. Wants to say they can’t, they shouldn’t, but he doesn’t. He shuts up, he pushes Keith back until they fumble and fall onto the bed. Dust flies up around them.

Ryou leans on his hands above Keith. Keith’s got tears all over again, but he grabs Ryou by the lapels of his jacket and pulls him in.

So Ryou gives in. Touches Keith everywhere, mind racing. His brother’s dead. Keith’s beneath him. Repeats that to himself over and over like a mantra because they’re the only two things in the universe that he can process at the moment.

Keith hisses when Ryou presses in—too fast, too dry—and Ryou bites back a gasp.

“Okay?” he asks, and Keith shakes his head.

“Go, go,” he begs, voice low, rough like the scratches his nails bite into Ryou’s shoulders.

He does, and Keith moans, all gritty and deep down in his chest. Ryou buries his face into Keith’s chest, sinks his fingers into his hips and scrapes his teeth bluntly against whatever flesh he first comes into contact with.

“I want you,” he murmurs, repeatedly, steadily louder.

“You have me,” Keith gasps back, legs tight around Ryou, foot digging into his ass, spurring him on.

“I don’t,” Ryou says, laughing all bitter and high, but Keith doesn’t say anything, just drags his mouth against Ryou’s throat.

They’re rougher now, animalistic. The bed creaks in warning beneath them. Ryou slams a hand against the headboard, recoils at the pain but still finds himself chasing after it.

Keith’s biting his lip, crying, and Ryou’s suddenly crying too. He slows to a stop, buries his head into Keith’s neck and breathes, tastes salt and tries telling himself he doesn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. He wishes he had more to offer than that.

“I want to forget,” Keith murmurs above him, carding a hand through Ryou’s sweaty hair. “I want to forget everything.”

Ryou raises his head, meets Keith’s open gaze. He cups his cheek even though it feels too delicate, too intimate, like something he shouldn’t be doing. Keith doesn’t stop him from doing it, though. He presses his face into Ryou’s hand.

“Make me forget,” he pleads, and he’s _shaking_.

Ryou builds himself back to a deep, steady rhythm, something that aches in the best possible way. And when Keith gets a hand around himself, arches his back and whispers something that sounds horrifically like _Takashi_ , well…

Ryou breaks. He sobs, loud and unapologetic, curls his hands into fists and hiccups his way through an orgasm. Keith doesn’t push him off when Ryou collapses on top of him.

And then the world goes black.

When he wakes, it’s light outside. Too early to be awake.

Keith is drinking from a ceramic mug, knees pulled to his chest. There’s a hickey on his neck. Ryou feels nauseous when he looks at it.

“I punched Iverson,” he says.

“What?” Ryou brings himself up onto his elbows.

Keith sets his cup down and flexes the fingers of his right hand. The knuckles are torn, still stained with blood.

“They kicked me out.”

“I—yeah, I remember that,” Ryou gets out after a moment.

Keith looks down at him with a blank expression on his face.

“We’re the same now,” he says.

Ryou takes in a steadying breath. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t know what the fuck I want.”

He almost cringes, hearing his own words being fired back at him. Keith sinks down into the bed so they’re shoulder to shoulder, every inch of sticky skin pressed together. It’s hot in the shack, unbearably so, and Ryou feels like he’s burning alive.

“You were right, you know,” Keith continues. “You’re the closest to him I’ll ever get.”

“Keith, I—”

“You think he knew?”

“What?”

“You think he knew that I…that I loved him?”

It feels like a knife to the heart, a sucker punch to the throat. Ryou swallows them down, but they get stuck halfway down his throat, get lodged there and won’t budge.

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” Keith whispers.

Ryou leans up again, gets a good look at Keith’s face. Just like always, he won’t show what he’s thinking. Ryou has to chip away at him, get beneath the surface just to figure out what he means. But…

He’s too exhausted to do that now. He can’t think. Nothing makes sense.

“I wish I could be him,” he says. Doesn’t know why. Can’t take the words back, though.

“I don’t want you to be,” Keith replies evenly. “You’d just leave again.”

“I’m not gonna leave you.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

There’s anger behind Keith’s word, something tangible that makes Ryou waver upon hearing them. Keith starts to shift, like he’s going to leave. Ryou grabs him and pulls, desperate.

“Stay.”

Keith stops.

“Why?”

“Because I want you to.”

The look Keith gives him over his shoulder is etched with the kind of deep pain one only experiences a few times in their lives. Ryou stares at him, wishes he knew how to take it away, wishes he had the answers Keith wants. He wants this to be different, different than that time on Takashi’s balcony, wishes for some kind of happy ending, but Keith, _Keith_ mumbles:

“Not good enough."


	4. Chapter 4

It’s an empty fridge that drives Ryou away from the shack in the end.

He drives into town, ducks in-between aisles at the grocery store, avoids anyone who may have an inkling of who he is. He makes it all the way to the register without incident, but then the cashier scans a jar of marinara sauce and pauses to give him a long, searching look.

“Oh,” he starts, and Ryou’s heart plummets into his gut. He doesn’t know what kind of look is on his face, but it must be miserable enough to stop the cashier from saying anything more than: “I’m sorry for your loss.”

The words wash over him in an icy wave. He feels it from head to toe, shuts his eyes for a moment to compose himself. He hears the steady _beep, beep_ of his shit being scanned and holds onto it like it’s a goddamn lifeline.

“Thanks,” he grits out.

The cashier murmurs out his total. Ryou slams a handful of bills onto the counter, grabs his bag, and stalks off. He tosses his groceries into the backseat without a care and slides into the front seat.

He pounds the steering wheel, screams until his voice is hoarse and raw. Screams until it feels like his throat is bleeding, until the pain overwhelms him, becomes the only fucking thing he can feel.

There’s a tap on the window. Ryou swallows hard, composes himself, focuses on the white noise ringing in his ears.

He rolls the window down. It’s Adam. Hoodie drawn up over his head. Sunken cheeks. Hell in a person.

“Fuck,” Ryou mutters, roughly, and Adam leans closer towards the window.

“I…” he starts. Trails off. Doesn’t finish.

“What do you want?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Like fucking hell you are.”

Ryou reaches for the latch, starts cranking like mad, but Adam slides his hand through the gap like the fucking psychopath he is.

“ _What_?” Ryou snarls. Doesn’t stop himself. Adam works his jaw hard. Once, twice, three fucking times.

“I’m _sorry_.”

“You left him.”

“…I know.”

“You fucking _left him_!”

Ryou throws the door open, takes some sick satisfaction in the way Adam stumbles backwards, slamming against the car parked beside Ryou’s. Ryou grabs him by the shoulders and pushes him back again, knuckles white, practically foaming at the goddamn mouth.

“You’re the reason he’s out there,” he hisses, watching as Adam’s eyes go all wide behind his fogged up glasses. He laughs, short and bitter, and shakes him for emphasis. “You sent him there.”

Adam shakes his head. “I didn’t want him to go. You know that!”

“He wanted to prove himself,” Ryou growls. “To you and every goddamn person at that fucking school. Look where _that_ got him.”

Adam’s eyebrows furrow tightly. He’s shaking his head again, back and forth, back and forth.

“I didn’t think this would happen. I—fuck, Ryou, you think _anyone_ expected this shit?”

“They’re blaming him,” Ryou murmurs, stepping back, wringing his hands to ward off the tension boiling inside of him. “Fucking pilot error. You buy that bullshit?”

Adam’s quiet, too quiet.

“Holy fuck. You think they’re right.”

“I don’t know,” Adam says. “I wasn’t up there.”

“Yeah, but you fucking flew with him for years!” Ryou’s throwing his hands up, pacing in the tight space between the cars. “You know he’d never fuck up like that! Never!”

Adam gets this look on his face, something borderline patronizing.

“Shit happens, Ryou. You know that more than anything.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Adam pauses for an obnoxiously long amount of time. He sighs, loud, forced, biting his lip.

“Well…he _was_ sick.”

“You fucking piece of shit,” Ryou seethes, reaching for Adam again.

Adam evades him this time, though, and Ryou’s fist goes sailing into the door of the pick-up in front of him. The pain ricochets up his arm, and he’s hollering, screaming bloody goddamn murder in the middle of a parking lot.

People are staring, whispering, ushering their kids along.

“I’m not blaming him!” Adam insists. “No one’s blaming him!”

“Fuck you,” Ryou settles on. He throws open his car door, gets inside and slams it hard enough to make Adam shuffle away.

He peels out of the parking lot. Doesn’t bother with a seatbelt. Drives right to his fucking penthouse, where he storms up and throws the door open.

He grabs a bag and shoves his shit into it. Boxers, shirts, jeans, whatever. His phone’s ringing but he ignores it, even yanks the goddamn thing off the wall. He tosses it at the glass divider between the kitchen and the living room.

Glass shatters and he just _loses_ it. Sees red as he’s tossing barely-used pans all over the damn place. Goes into the guest room. Takashi’s room.

Bottles of cologne hit the floor. Flight manuals. A replica of the same craft that flew his big brother up into space goes into the trash. Clothes strewn across the floor, sheets ripped from the bed.

He’s crying, fucking sobbing, and he just _stops_. Falls right into the middle of the room, buries his face in Takashi’s pillow and just lets go.

It’s not fair. None of this is fucking fair, and it’s like Ryou’s a kid all over again. Only now, Takashi’s not gonna come around and help him back onto his feet.

Takashi’s gone.

Takashi’s gone, and nothing will ever be the same again.

* * *

 

Ryou doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he wakes up to someone pounding on his door. He rubs the crust out of his eyes and stumbles down the dark hallway, feeling along the wall until he feels the knob beneath his fingers.

Keith’s standing there, right in front of him, illuminated by the light of the hall. His face is blank, hands tucked into his pockets.

“Adam said you flipped out on him.”

“Adam called you?”

Keith smirks. “Don’t look so shocked.”

Ryou shrugs in response.

“Thought you hated him.”

Keith’s expression hardens then, his jaw clenched tight.

“Said you might do something dangerous.”

“So, what, you came here like his little spy?”

Keith rolls his eyes skywards.

“I’m not here because of him.”

“Right,” Ryou drawls. He gestures towards himself. “Well. I’m here. All in one piece.”

Keith rakes his eyes over him once.

“It wasn’t his fault.”

Ryou snorts. “Of _course_ not. It’s never Adam’s fault.”

Keith pauses, then scoffs.

“I’m not talking about Adam.”

Ryou inhales sharply, has to grab the doorframe to stop himself from falling over.

“Jesus fuck.”

“You know it’s true. He’d never—Shiro wouldn’t _do that_!”

“There’s nothing we can do.”

“What are you talking about?” Keith asks, waving his hands wildly now. “You’re just gonna let it go?”

“What do you want me to fucking do, Kogane? My brother’s _dead_. You can’t fight for a dead man!”

Keith recoils like Ryou’s slapped him, shaking his head like he’s trying to stop Ryou’s words from reaching him.

“ _He’s not dead_!”

“You know what? Fuck this,” Ryou snaps, completely over this line of conversation, and goes to shut the door.

Keith shoves himself inside, wedges right between the frame and the door.

“He can’t be gone,” he says. His voice is soft, urgent.

“You can’t bring him back,” Ryou whispers, losing his fight. “ _I_ can’t bring him back.”

Keith sags against the wall. Ryou’s hand is shaking like a goddamn leaf when he reaches for Keith, wraps his fingers around his wrist and leads him inside. Shuts the door and holds him against the wall.

It’s dark, dark enough that all Ryou can make out is the faint outline of Keith’s face. The sharp slant of his nose, the soft curve of his lips, his pointed chin. Keith exhales then, a jagged breath that feels like it’s going to slice him right open.

“I think I’m losing my mind,” Keith says, and when Ryou slides a hand onto Keith’s chest he feels the words rumble against his palm.

“I think I’m losing my mind too,” Ryou murmurs. He rests his forehead against Keith’s, breathes him in and grips his shirt hard enough to hurt.

They’re quiet for a while. There’s a question burning in the back of Ryou’s mind, one that won’t go away no matter how much he tries to forget it.

“Are you going to leave?” Ryou asks. _Again_ hangs heavy in the air between them, unsaid but understood.

“I can’t stay.”

“You can. You just _won’t_.”

Keith moves then, shifts so he’s got a finger latched in the loop of Ryou’s jeans. He so close, close enough that Ryou can hear him swallowing, imagines his throat bobbing as he does.

“Why do you even want me?”

“Fuck if I know.”

That gets a laugh out of Keith, something genuine and real. Ryou closes his eyes when he feels that tell-tale warmth gathering behind his lids for what feels like the thousandth time today. He cups Keith’s cheeks, buries his face into his hair, takes in deep, heavy breaths.

“Don’t go.”

He’s begging. He’ll beg all damn night if he has to. He’s ready for Keith to fight, to struggle against him, to let the door shut behind him just like last time.

But Keith doesn’t move. He exhales against Ryou’s cheek, a warm puff of air followed by the brush of his ice-cold nose.

“Okay,” he says, broken beyond belief.

So Ryou lets out a relieved huff, untangles himself from Keith and leads him down the hall to his room. Keith’s shoes crunch glass as they go, but neither of them mention it. He flicks the light on in his room and flinches when it hits him all at once.

Keith stands by the door, staring at the place like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Ryou tugs his shirt over his head and grabs a towel.

“I’m gonna shower,” he announces.

Keith nods once.

Ryou shuts the bathroom door behind himself and turns the water on as hot as he can get it. His skin feels like it’s melting when he stands under the spray, but it’s great. The best fucking thing he’s felt all day. He scrubs at himself harshly, like he’ll somehow be able to scrub away the day. Maybe he will.

He wraps the towel around his waist when he gets out, swipes the steam off the mirror and examines himself. His eyes are blood shot. His beard’s growing out. He looks like shit, but at least he’s still breathing. Somehow. Miracles do happen, apparently.

He turns the light off and returns to his room. Keith’s on the bed now, boots abandoned on the ground, knees up to his chest. He doesn’t say anything, just stares at Ryou as he tugs on his boxers.

He sits on the edge of the bed, back to Keith as he works the towel over his hair. He hears the sheets rustle behind him, feels Keith’s body against his back.

“Let me,” Keith says, voice wrecked.

Lithe fingers wrestle the towel out of Ryou’s hand. He rubs it over his hair vigorously, his breathing soft and even behind him.

Ryou shuts his eyes. Keith finishes after a moment, and his fingers slide through Ryou’s hair. The towel drops onto the bed and Keith presses his mouth to the back of Ryou’s neck.

“Did you mean it?” he whispers.

“Mean what?” Ryou asks.

Keith’s fingers dance along his shoulders, slide down his arm until he’s gripping onto Ryou’s hand. Ryou intertwines their fingers, opens his eyes so he can look at it. Keith’s fingers are slimmer than his, but Ryou doesn’t underestimate him. He’s heard all about Keith and the punches he throws, the lengths he goes to in order to defend himself, defend the people he cares about.

Keith’s a fighter. It’s why Takashi said he’d be fine, even without him. Ryou wonders what Takashi would say if he saw Keith now. Keith, who punched out Iverson, got kicked out of the Garrison, and slept with his brother all in the same day.

Keith, who probably loved Takashi more than even _Ryou_ did.

“That you’re not gonna leave?”

“You’re the one who left.”

“I don’t want to. Not again.”

Keith buries his face into the back of his shoulder. Ryou squeezes their joined hands.

“Then don’t.”

* * *

 

Keith’s still sleeping when Ryou wakes up. It’s different than before. Not a happy ending by any means. Ryou doubts anything like that exists anymore.

He shifts onto his side, watches Keith. His face is relaxed now, free of the severity his expression usually carries. He looks younger now, like a goddamn _kid_ , and something in Ryou’s stomach lurches.

It’s wrong. This whole fucking this is _wrong_. But Ryou wants, wants _Keith_ , and he doesn’t know how to stop himself.

When he was a kid, his grandfather used to call him selfish. It was the main reason Ryou thought he favored Takashi over him. A lot of people favored Takashi, actually. The difference between them is that Takashi gave a shit about others.

But Ryou only liked making _himself_ feel good. That carried on into adulthood, all up into his days at the Garrison. Want is the reason he got kicked out. Turns out you can’t fuck Admiral Sanda’s granddaughter without some kind of punishment. There had been more to it than just defacing one of the debriefing rooms, but Ryou figures that had been the bulk of it.

Hell, maybe that’s why she gave Takashi such a hard time. Didn’t matter that he was as good as golden. He was _Ryou’s_ brother.

Takashi never seemed to care that Ryou was more of a nuisance than he liked to admit. He paraded him around even though he didn’t have nearly as an impressive background as Takashi. He didn’t have any natural talents, any desires that went beyond finding warmth in another person.

Their grandfather kicked Ryou out when the Garrison did. Every turned their back on him. Everyone but Takashi.

That’s probably why Ryou can’t let this go now. Putting aside the fact that Takashi’s his flesh and blood. Takashi was never careless. Takashi never did anything that garnered a punishment.

But now he’s gone, and his royal fuck up of a brother is left behind. Ryou feels bad for everyone that sees him, everyone who sees him and wishes _he_ was the brother floating up in space right now.

Especially Keith.

“Ryou?”

He starts, sees Keith’s eyes half-open.

“Yeah?”

Keith shakes his head, sinks down into the bed. The comforter blocks half his face so Ryou pushes it down. It’s cold in here, with the air conditioner on full blast and all, but Ryou doesn’t pay attention to that. Keith’s looking at him, a thoughtful expression on his face, and Ryou almost presses him for answers.

“Nothing,” Keith murmurs then, shifting onto his other side.

Ryou stares at his back, swallows down the urge to reach out for him. Rolls onto his back, looks up at the ceiling, and fights back the dry sob that threatens to crawl up his throat.

Keith’s here.

Keith _stayed_.

He repeats that to himself, over and over. It doesn’t feel real, feels like some fantasy his mind brought up. He’s afraid to blink. Afraid to do anything that’ll make Keith slip through his fingers again.

“Keith?” Ryou tries.

He gets a light snore in response. He snickers to himself, folding his arms behind his head. He stays like that until Keith fully wakes up an hour later and shifts to rest his back against the headboard.

“What now?” Keith asks, looking at Ryou like he has all the answers.

“I don’t know. Something. Anything.”

Keith snorts.

“Anything?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Keith gives Ryou a barely there smile, one that makes his breath stutter in his chest.

“Okay. Anything it is.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally rewatched episode one to write this chapter lol but I took some liberties to fit this fic (obvi)
> 
> That being said we’re winding down here folks! Thanks for coming along on this ride that was actually never supposed to become a legit multichapter fic!

“Do you have anywhere to go?” Ryou asks.

They’re sitting at the kitchen counter. The mess from last night hasn’t been cleaned up. Ryou’s pulling tiny shards of glass out of the bottom of his foot, wincing and biting his cheek to stop himself from screaming. Keith’s swinging his legs, his boots hitting the counter every so often.

Keith pauses, spoonful of oatmeal halfway up to his lips. He shrugs, popping the spoon into his mouth and making a small, noncommittal noise in the back of his throat.

“I’ll figure it out.”

A particularly big piece slides out of his foot then. Ryou shouts, dropping the tweezers in his hand to the ground. Keith starts, jumping from his spot on the counter.

Ryou sighs and rakes his fingers through his hair. Keith sets his bowl aside.

“You should probably clean this shit up.”

“Yeah. Probably.”

Neither of them move. Ryou swallows hard. Gathers his courage, because he’s always piss-scared of scaring Keith off.

“You could stay with me, you know. If you don’t have anywhere else.”

Keith cocks a brow. He doesn’t say anything when he hops off from the counter, depositing his empty bowl into the sink.

“You got a broom?” he asks, spraying water onto the towering pile of dishes.

“Uh, yeah. Somewhere.”

Ryou sets to work finding it (after donning a pair of house slippers) and Keith cleans up the remains of their meager breakfast. He watches Keith’s back as he sweeps, eyeing the hard line of his shoulders.

“I’m thinking of giving this place up.”

“Why?” Keith asks with a snort. He shuts the tap off and wipes his hands lazily on a dishtowel. “It’s nice. Probably expensive as shit, but—well, I guess you can’t always win.”

Ryou carefully sweeps the glass towards the corner of the room, shuffling slowly to the closet to retrieve a dustpan.

“The shack’s nice too.”

Keith freezes.

“You’re gonna stay there?”

“It’s home.”

“Home,” Keith echoes flatly. He turns to face Ryou then, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest. “What’s it like having one of those?”

“Come with me, Keith.”

“Jesus fuck, you’re relentless.”

Keith laughs without humor, shaking his head and staring off at something to the side.

“You said you’d stay.”

“I did.”

“Did you mean it?”

“I try to mean what I say most of the time.”

Ryou works his jaw hard.

“Then come with me.”

Keith lets out a slow, even breath. Still doesn’t respond, though, so Ryou drops it. For now, at least. He cleans up the rest of the kitchen and then walks down the hall to Takashi’s room.

Stops, though. Starts shaking again, starts thinking about how Takashi’s never going to come around here again.

It’s Keith who opens the door, in the end. Ryou jumps because he hadn’t even heard him following him. The door swings open, creaking out a whine, and Keith whistles.

“You did a number on this fucking place, man,” he murmurs, stepping around Ryou and entering.

His face falls, though, when he realizes where exactly they’re standing. It’s probably the Garrison uniform that gives it away, the one Ryou had tried ripping to shreds but ultimately lacked the strength to do so. That damn orange and white monstrosity’s sitting right there in the middle of the mess.

Keith crouches, scoops it into his hands. Looks like he’s holding _Takashi_.

“Adam broke off the engagement. Said he couldn’t handle Takashi going off into space.”

“Fuck,” Keith whispers, barely audible.

Ryou powers on. He can’t be the only one suffering like this.

“He stayed with me. Said he’d come back here too, but…well.”

“Fuck,” Keith mutters again, louder, rougher. He drops the uniform to the ground. “What’re you gonna do with his stuff?”

“What do you think I should do?”

“I can’t tell you what to do,” Keith says, sounding peeved. “Not about _this_.”

Ryou grinds his teeth together. In the end, they clean up Takashi’s stuff too. Pack it away into boxes. Keith gets the spacecraft model out of the trash, runs a thumb over it reverently.

“I got him this,” he says, twisting it this way and that. “Cost an arm and a leg, but you should’ve seen his face. He cried.”

“Sounds like Takashi,” Ryou agrees, reaching for it. Keith hands it over after a second. Ryou tweaks one of the half-broken wings. “Here. Keep it.”

Keith’s eyebrows furrow. He accepts the model anyway, slipping it into his pocket with the kind of care Ryou’s hardly seen him show.

They move Takashi’s few boxes into the hall. Ryou gets his stuff from the bedroom, shutting the door tightly behind him. There’s an air of finality to each of his movements as he strips the apartment of everything personal.

By the time he’s done, he doesn’t recognize the place. If he squints, thinks hard enough, he can remember downing whiskey at the counter, passing out on the couch, fucking a nameless pretty face on whatever surface he can get to fastest.

Thing is, there isn’t anything _good_ about this place. He’s not going to miss it, honest to God.

Keith’s giving him a weird look from where he stands by the door, a small circle of boxes around his feet. Ryou doesn’t offer an explanation, just hefts up a box and starts walking away.

“You’re just gonna leave like this?” Keith asks.

“I’ll figure something out,” Ryou offers by way of an answer.

Keith doesn’t push it. They finish loading the car and he stands on the curb, a contemplative expression on his face.

Ryou opens his mouth to speak but stops when Keith opens the passenger side door and gets it. He bites his cheek hard enough to bleed, holding back a smile as he gets in.

The drive to the shack is quiet. Ryou turns the radio on, but it fizzles out into static halfway there. He shuts it off and avoids looking at Keith.

When they get to the shack, they get to work. Clean. Unpack. Stock the fridge with groceries, put clothes in the closet. Ryou opens the back room, the one Takashi had been using as a makeshift gym. There’s a pull-up bar attached to the frame, a worn gym mat on the ground.

“You can have the room,” Ryou tells Keith, who’s hovering over his shoulder. “There’s a sleeping bag around here somewhere. Maybe. I think.”

Keith snickers and steps back. Heads back into the kitchen like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He leans against the counter, drumming his fingers idly against it.

“How’d you find this place?”

“An accident,” Ryou says, mirroring Keith’s position. “I was taking my hoverbike for a, uh, _spin_.”

Keith’s eyes widen, just a bit.

“You have a hoverbike?”

“Yeah,” Ryou says. “Haven’t used it since I moved to the city, though. It’s not as nice as the ones you guys get at the Garrison now, but it serves its purpose.”

“Shiro used to let me use his,” Keith mumbles. “We’d race in the desert.”

“We used to do that too,” Ryou says. “Until I got kicked out. By then he was too busy giving me lectures to kick back.”

Keith shakes his head fondly. “He did love giving lectures.”

Ryou cracks a grin and reaches out to ruffle Keith’s hair. Keith ducks away from him, just so, enough that Ryou’s had slips and lands on his cheek instead. Ryou traces over his cheek bones, drags the pad of his thumb along the sharp bridge of Keith’s nose and the curves of his mouth. His skin’s soft, so soft, and a small part of Ryou is scared he’ll bruise him.

“I’m not gonna lecture you.”

“Nice,” Keith says coolly, moving backwards. He approaches the window, peering out at the seemingly endless line of sand dunes. “How far does this go out?”

“Dunno. Here’s the farthest I’ve been.”

“Huh,” Keith murmurs. “You still got that bike?”

“It’s out back somewhere. Hasn’t worked in years, though.”

Keith shrugs and steps away from the window. “That sucks.”

Ryou bites his lip, preparing himself for the words he’s been think of ever since Keith got into his car.

“Thanks.”

“For what?” Keith asks, clearly confused.

“For coming out here,” Ryou says.

 _For coming with me_ , he doesn’t add.

* * *

 

They get into a routine, after that. Days turn into a week, then months, and eventually, a year. Neither of them forgets Takashi. It’s the ache of his absence that keeps them tethered to each other. Their shared grief has them seeking out comfort from the other.

Ryou tries not to think about how things would be if Takashi was alive.

Keith spends most of his time outside. He gets the bike working after a few weeks, and he doesn’t come back to the shack until it’s dark most days.

Ryou gets a job in the next town over pushing carts and bagging groceries. It’s where most of the Garrison drop-outs end up, he finds out. There are some kids he recognizes from some of his engineering classes, the ones who washed out even before he had.

They don’t say anything to him. He’s sure they know all about Takashi. There probably isn’t a person in the world who doesn’t. He’d been the shining star of the Galaxy Garrison, the kind of perfect pilot that only came around once in a lifetime.

He’s coming home after closing one day, when the sky’s starting to shift from pink and orange to purple and black. The bike’s not parked where it usually is. Ryou feels his eyebrows furrowing, his heartbeat kicking up in pace.

Keith went out, he tells himself. It’s not like he’s _gone_.

…Right?

 _Right_. Of course. Don’t be ridiculous.

He shakes his head at himself, wondering what the hell happened to him. It took years for him to get to the point where he stopped giving a damn about others. How had one kid just come along and undone all of that?

Ryou busies himself with working dinner. Tries not to think of Keith again, but it’s hard not to. Especially when he’s got two plates on the counter, two forks, two glasses.

Domestic as _fuck_.

He doesn’t go crazy. Pasta and sauce, plus some sausage he’d managed to find in the back of the freezer. He doesn’t know what time it is when Keith finally comes through the door.

He’s got sand clinging to every inch of him. He shakes it out of his hair and hangs his jacket up behind the door. He’s washing his hands, his eyebrows pinched together.

“Hi, honey,” Ryou drawls sarcastically. “How was your day?”

He expects it to get a laugh, maybe even a smirk out of Keith. But there’s nothing. A blank stare. Keith looks keyed up, his leg constantly bobbing as he makes his way through his dinner, practically vibrating in place.

“What’s up with you?”

“I found something,” Keith says.

“What?” Ryou tries. Blinks, once, twice. “Like _what_ , exactly?”

Keith reaches into his pocket and brings out a picture. It looks like some kind of graph maybe, a thick red line that dips and rises at certain spots. Beside it, Keith places a picture of a mountain rage.

“It’s a Fraunhofer line,” Keith explains, tapping a finger against the graph.

“A measure of how much energy something has,” Ryou murmurs to himself, wanting to kick himself for still remembering whatever shit the Garrison had shoved into his brain.

Keith nods solemnly. “The points match up.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Keith. Is this what you do out there?”

“There’s _something_ out there,” Keith insists, voice low. “Energy like that isn’t an accident.”

Ryou pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re insane.”

“What if it’s related to the Garrison?”

“Uh, cool? Hate to break it to you, but we were both kinda given the boot.”

Keith scowls. “What if it has to do with Shiro?”

“…What the fuck are you talking about?”

“The Garrison’s trying to hide something,” Keith says. “Pilot error? Anyone who knows Shiro knows that’s bullshit.”

“So, what, you’re gonna go out there? Uncover whatever dirty secret they have?”

Keith crosses his arms. Ryou whistles lowly.

“This is crazy. You realize that, right?”

“Are you coming or not?”

Ryou rolls his eyes. “What do you think?”

Keith smirks triumphantly.

* * *

 

They ride out to the cave that night even though Ryou says they should wait. He tries not to scream when Keith races over cliffs and brings them plummeting to the ground before pulling up at the last second. His head is spinning by the time Keith parks up in front of a massive cave. He ignores the way Keith grins smugly and sets his helmet carefully onto the handlebar of his bike, following a couple careful paces behind him.

Keith has the map out, his finger tracing a particularly long curve as he walks. He’s mouthing something to himself and stops abruptly. Ryou rights himself, grabbing onto Keith’s shoulder to stay steady.

There’s a couple of wooden boards nailed in front of the entrance. Keith kicks them down like the protagonist from a cheap action flick and Ryou bites back a snarky comment. He settles for:

“Really?”

Which gets him an eye roll and an impatient tut. They walk into the cave, where Keith reaches for the flashlight hanging from his hip. He flicks it on, flooding the area with light.

Ryou can’t hold back his gasp.

There are drawings lining the wall. Most of it is writing, but Ryou can’t recognize what language it is. He brushes his thumb against one of the pictures, coughing as the earth crumbles from his touch, bringing a cloud of dust up.

“What the hell is this?”

He stops in front of the biggest of the pictures. It looks like a lion, blue and muscular. People are kneeling before it, and the lion appears to be crouched over them protectively. There’s a brilliant yellow sun drawn behind the creature.

Keith presses his fingertips against one of the massive paws.

“No idea. There are other caves, but this is the only one I could figure out how to get into.”

“Jesus,” Ryou swears, stepping back and clapping dust off his palms. “How’d you even figure this shit out?”

“I felt it,” Keith says, voice small.

Ryou almost says more, but suddenly there’s a flash of light behind them. His eyebrows furrow as he steps out of the cave, following the bright streak until his gaze lands on something in the distance.

“Hey, Keith?” he calls, peering over his shoulder. “You might wanna come look at this.”

Keith steps up beside him, squinting. His eyes widen, then, and he races for the bike.

“Whoa, hey! What’s happening?”

“That’s heading for the Garrison,” Keith says, revving the engine.

Ryou’s back on the bike before he can think about it. Keith speeds along and Ryou curls his fingers into the back of his shirt, digging his nails into Keith’s side to ground himself. When Keith parks, he tosses his helmet off and crouches at the edge of the overlook.

There’s a smattering of Garrison soldiers bustling about. Most of them seem concentrated around a large, silver building. Behind it, Ryou can faintly see plumes of smoke curling into the night sky.

“What do you think it is?” he asks, looking over at Keith.

“We’re gonna find out,” Keith answers, already beginning to climb down. Ryou grabs his wrist.

“Keith!”

“Stay here,” Keith mutters, wiggling his wrist out of Ryou’s grip.

Ryou groans, raking his fingers through his hair.

“Goddamn it,” he mutters, just before he follows Keith down.

They sneak towards the building. A truck comes by, and a few soldiers get on it. The truck speeds away, leaving nothing but dust in its wake. When the activity in front of the building seems to wear down, Keith gets up and heads for the door.

This close, they can hear screaming from inside. Ryou grabs Keith again, shaking his head. 

“We can’t do this, Keith. This doesn’t sound good.”

”We made it this far,” Keith replies, determined. “I’m not going back.”

Ryou barely has time to prepare himself before Keith’s running towards the door. They get inside, where Keith easily knocks out two people dressed in hazmat suits. 

Ryou approaches the body strapped to the table, working the buckles off around the guy’s wrists. His eyes snap open, pupils blown wide, and Ryou feels the world around him come crashing down. 

“Takashi?”


	6. Chapter 6

Keith and Ryou bring Takashi back to the shack.

He stands in the doorway for a few long moments like he doesn’t feel he belongs. It takes Keith gently nudging him along to get Takashi inside, to sit down behind the counter and _relax_. Keith makes him drink half a glass of water before he lets Takashi say so much as a word.

And Ryou just stares, looks at Takashi like he’s seeing a ghost. He is, really. The headline from a year ago flashes in his mind.

Pilot error. Kerberos. No survivors.

_Pilot. Error._

_No. Survivors._

But Takashi’s here. In their shack, alive. Beating the odds just like always, Ryou notes sardonically.

Takashi looks worse for wear, all bleached bangs and jagged pink scar slashed across the bridge of his nose. He looks buff, more than before, and Ryou points it out with a grin.

Takashi looks at him blankly. The smile slips off Ryou’s face. Keith stares between then, shoulders set, lips pressed into a tense line.

“I’m gonna…” he trails off, shakes his head. Shoots Takashi a smile, the secret little one Ryou had managed to coax out of Keith six months after they started living together.

And then the door’s shutting with an audible click, and Keith’s gone, and Ryou’s left to stare at his big brother, back from the dead.

A goddamn miracle.

“What the hell happened to you?”

He doesn’t mean to sound so rough. Means, really, to gently ease Takashi into things. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that he saw some shit out there.

But Ryou’s mind is working too fast for his mouth to keep up with. His brain’s screaming at him to figure this out, figure _Takashi_ out because—well, there might as well be a fucking stranger in his house at the moment.

“You’d never believe me,” Takashi says. There’s an edge to his voice, to his movements. He carries himself like he’s got something to be afraid of, like Ryou’s suddenly going to turn on him or some shit like that.

It terrifies him, to see Takashi acting like Ryou’s a predator and he’s the cornered prey. He swallows hard, rakes his fingers through his hair and chooses his next words carefully.

“Try me.”

Takashi’s eyes glaze over. Ryou almost reaches for him out of reflex, but the look on his brother’s face keeps him at bay. Takashi looks like he’s being tortured, like he’s wading through a year’s worth of physical pain.

Probably is, Ryou decides, eyeing the scar on Takashi’s nose.

“Why are you out here?” Takashi asks in lieu of an answer.

Ryou recognizes when he shouldn’t push, believe it or not.

“I needed space.”

Takashi’s lip twitches into an almost-smile.

“Isn’t that why you got the penthouse?”

“This is home,” Ryou says, with more bite than he’d been meaning to. Takashi cringes back at it, just so, and something curls in Ryou’s gut. “It was hard for me. I thought—look, you were _gone_. I needed to get away.”

“I’m sorry, Ryou.”

“For what?” he asks, scoffing. “You didn’t _do_ anything.”

“You told me not to go.”

“Jesus Christ, Takashi,” Ryou says then, recognizing the statement for what it is. “Don’t you dare fucking blame yourself.”

Takashi gets a dark look on his face then, something intense and scathing that Ryou doesn’t think he’s ever seen on him before.

“Why not? It’s my fault.”

“You didn’t do anything and you know it.”

“I killed people.”

The words hang in the air between them heavily. Ryou feels his jaw go slack unintentionally and rushes to snap his mouth closed. It doesn’t matter, though. Takashi’s already seen his initial reaction, and he looks paler than a sheet of paper.

“They made me do it. I had to win. If I didn’t, then they’d kill me.”

“They?” Ryou echoes, leaning across the counter. “Who’re _they_ , Takashi?”

Takashi hesitates, mouth opening and closing without releasing a single sound. Ryou waits it out, leg jiggling violently, fingers digging crescents into the sensitive skin of his wrist. Takashi clears his throat, spreads his palms out on the table.

“They’re called the Galra,” he says, slow, soft, so very _soft_. “They’ve got an emperor named Zarkon and they’re, well, trying to take over the universe.”

In any other circumstances, Ryou would’ve laughed. Full-bodied, tears forming in his eyes, knee-slapping kind of laughed. But he doesn’t do this now, not when Takashi’s looking at him so earnestly, like the thought of Ryou believing him will help him cope with whatever the fuck happened to him in the past year.

“So they kidnapped you?”

Takashi nods. “They took us to the center of their empire. Sam was sent to work in a labor camp and they had me in the arena with Matt.”

“Arena?” Ryou echoes, and then it clicks.

 _I killed people_ , he hears Takashi saying in that solemn voice, and a strong wave of nausea rolls in his gut.

“Holy fucking shit,” he murmurs, and Takashi visibly flinches. “ _Takashi_.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Takashi answers, staring at the counter with a far-away expression on his face. “If I had a choice…”

He trails off.

Ryou doesn’t need him to finish. He gets up, rounding the counter and crushing his brother into a hug so tight it feels like he’s squeezing his intestines out of place. It’s a disgusting image, but Ryou doesn’t give it more thought. Takashi has been there for him, from when their parents died to when he got kicked out of the Garrison.

The least he can do is repay the favor.

He only pulls away when he hears the rumble of the hoverbike outside. Keith must be back. Takashi sniffles and takes care to scrub his face clean of the tears clinging to his skin.

“We’re gonna figure this out,” Ryou promises fiercely, never mind that he isn’t quite sure what _this_ is. “I swear.”

“I know,” Takashi says, sounding so weak, so breakable.

So _human_.

Ryou’s never seen him as that, believe it or not. Takashi Shirogane doesn’t have any weaknesses. Anyone who tried poking and prodding at him knew that. He was made to be somebody, through and through. He isn’t fucked up beyond belief like Ryou.

Takashi’s perfect. But now…now, he’s not the superhero Ryou had grown up idolizing. He’s not the clean-cut good boy he learned to envy. He’s a man who’s suffered so much, so much of something Ryou will never be able to fully understand, even if Takashi does tell him every excruciating detail one day.

The door opens with a slow whine. Keith shuts it with a tiny clink. Even from where he stands, Ryou can see how tightly his jaw is clenched.

“Keith,” Takashi calls, turning.

He doesn’t have to say anything else. Keith goes to him without any prodding, willingly accepts the hug Takashi wraps him up in.

And Ryou just stands there, taking it in, heart caught in his throat. Keith’s eyes meet his briefly over Takashi’s shoulders, but then he squeezes them shut and presses his forehead into the meat of Takashi’s shoulder.

Ryou busies himself with clearing the dishes from dinner, scrubbing the glasses with more force than necessary. Takashi and Keith are whispering to each other, words so soft that Ryou can’t hear them.

Not that he’s _trying_ to.

Just as he sets the last clean plate aside, he hears shuffling behind him. He turns to see Takashi rubbing at the back of his neck, looking thoroughly exhausted.

“You should get some rest,” Keith says, all soft around the edges. Ryou’s body physically aches at the sound of his voice.

“I—yeah,” Takashi cuts himself off mid-protest.

A fond smile curls the edges of Keith’s lips up.

“You’re gonna be okay, Shiro.”

Takashi presses his lips into a thin line and nods once. He disappears down the hall to the bedroom, where he shuts the door quietly behind himself.

It’s silent between Keith and Ryou then.

“There’s another sleeping bag in the hall closet,” Ryou says conversationally, trying to pretend his heart isn’t trying to beat right out of his chest. “You’re free to put it in my room. I got the fan working. Or you can take the couch if you want. Whatever you’re good with.”

“Sleeping bag sounds fine,” Keith says.

Ryou works his jaw hard.

“Did you tell Takashi…?” he starts, but doesn’t know how to finish it. _We’re living together? About us?_ It all seems to incredibly wrong.

He turns around, facing Keith for what feels like the first time since they found Takashi. Keith looks helpless, his eyebrows furrowed.

“I figured I’d let you do that,” he mutters, shrugging a shoulder. “Wasn’t really sure what to say.”

“Yeah,” Ryou agrees after a minute, forcing out a dry laugh.

The thing is, they’re living together. Ryou knows that. That’s what the deal’s been for a year. But they don’t have a name for this, whatever it is. This whole _anything_ situation was fun back when they didn’t have to answer to anyone, when it was just the two of them.

Not that Ryou doesn’t want Takashi here. No, not at all. Having his brother alive and under the same roof as him gives him the kind of peace he hadn’t been able to achieve before, not even with Keith’s calming presence around him.

But Takashi doesn’t know. Doesn’t know that Keith was (is?) in love with him, that he and Ryou took comfort in each other’s bodies, that they live together, that everything is so fucking comfortable and cozy, like they’re a goddamn _family_ , but…

Ryou still doesn’t have Keith. Not even when they’re living in this piece of shit shack, out in the desert with no one else around for miles, relying on each other to put aside their grief.

His throat feels tight. Uncomfortably so, like he’s about to run out of air or choke or something equally horrific.

Keith shifts awkwardly. “I’m gonna head to bed.”

“Right. Yeah. Good night.”

“G’night,” Keith murmurs, and then he’s gone.

Ryou busies himself doing a whole lot of nothing. Works his way through a few old-as-hell books, fiddles with the radio, contemplates taking the hoverbike for a ride.

He doesn’t do that. Instead, he stands in the living room, torn between going back to his room and crashing on the couch. Keith’s probably gotten used to having his own room, his own space even though they share the rest of the place.

In the end, the crippling heat in the living room sends him to his bedroom. He’s got a cot now, one that he picked up at an odds-and-ends shop in town. It creaks every time he so much as breathes, but it’s comfy, especially with the shit-ton of pillows he had somehow amassed.

The window is open, letting in a surprisingly cool breeze. The fan oscillates the fresh air towards Ryou, cooling the sweat that had managed to accumulate along his nape. Keith is curled up in the spare sleeping bag, his dark hair spilling across the bright red fabric.

Ryou moves as quietly as possibly, cursing when his cot squeaks when he gets into it. He shifts on his side and considers turning away when he realizes his eyes are glued to Keith’s back. Keith’s deep in sleep, his breaths even and slow. He must’ve been bone-tired, Ryou muses. Saving a dude will do that to you.

Keith shifts onto his back, head lolling towards Ryou. He follows the curves and edges of his face, heat simmering in the pit of his stomach.

Takashi being back takes on a whole new meaning, then. A overwhelmingly large part of him wishes to keep them both, to have his brother and Keith in the same place. Because, well…he loves them.

He loves Keith.

He’s never admitted to anyone, not even himself. Hell, he’s never so much as _dared_ to think about it.

But Ryou knows he’s felt it.

Ever since that first time he actually talked to Keith, when he’d been drinking that god-awful coffee and feeling beyond sorry for himself. Everything he’s ever felt towards Keith, every word, every action, has been building towards this.

A painful end, he thinks. With no payoff, to boot.

Because Keith doesn’t _love_ him. Probably still loves Takashi, probably still thought about him on the rare occasions he and Ryou had sex to forget every goddamn feeling they had except for lust.

That’s all this is for Keith, right? A means to cope, a way to get himself to move on. He stayed, sure, but maybe that had been more for Ryou than anything. Maybe Keith sensed that Ryou was a hopeless fucker who’d shrivel up and die if he didn’t have someone breathing down his neck, reminding him to consume something other than beer and do something other than _fuck_.

At one point, Takashi had been his lifeline. When everything was falling apart, when the world felt too big and too small at the same damn time, Takashi had been the one Ryou would cling to. He loves his brother something fierce, sought comfort and protection in him because Takashi is the only person he trusts to gather up all of his broken pieces.

But then the world showed him just how unfair it was, and Ryou was forced to believe his brother was dead. He needed someone else then, someone else he could lean on, and for a while he thought he’d never find that again. No one could take Takashi’s place, fit so perfectly in Ryou’s life that he couldn’t imagine living it without them.

No one but Keith.

Keith, who Ryou _loves_ , today, tomorrow, and every day after that.

* * *

 

Ryou wakes up to silence.

It’s the kind of silence that has him throwing off the blankets and leaving the room, shooting a glance towards Keith’s abandoned sleeping bag. Takashi’s not in the other bedroom either, so Ryou makes his way to the kitchen, scratching the back of his neck.

There’s a note taped to the fridge. He rips it off, scanning over the words and resisting the urge to curse up a storm.

_Wanted to check out that cave again. Shiro wouldn’t let me leave unless I let him come along. Be back later._

_-Keith_

It’s impersonal, straight to the point with all of Keith’s usual bluntness. Even so, Ryou sets the note back onto the counter with an absurd amount of care. He plows his way through another book, something about an intergalactic space war that makes his stomach sour when he remembers the little bits Takashi had fed him about his year in Galran captivity.

He ignores it, telling himself that it’s to entertain himself. Certainly not because he’s waiting for Takashi and Keith to come back. Of _course_ not.

They don’t return until sundown. Ryou almost chastises them for it until he realizes they’ve got company. Three _kids_ , really, all of who look at Takashi like he’s some kind of god.

“No fucking way,” one says, the lanky one with a strangely sharp nose.

“Language, Lance,” another says half-heartedly. He looks like he could crush Ryou, bones and all, even with his soft features and the gentle awe coloring his voice.

There’s another one, with glasses and the worst haircut Ryou’s ever seen. Ryou squints at them for a long, hard second before the realization hits him like a ton of bricks.

It's Katie. Katie _Holt_.

He opens his mouth to say something, but Katie glares at him severely. Ryou snaps his mouth shut.

Behind the three of them, Takashi looks sheepish as he rubs the back of his neck. Keith’s got his arms crossed, resting bitch face on, and Ryou bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing.

“They found the cave too,” Keith offers, brushing past them and not even apologizing when his shoulder bumps into the lanky kid.

The kid—Lance, Ryou remembers—gawks at him.

“Wait, wait!” he says, holding his hands out. “You’re _Keith_.”

“Yeah?” Keith says, raising a brow as he does. “I am.”

“Keith. Keith Kogane. Washed out of the Garrison Kogane. Right?”

Keith scowls. Lance laughs in disbelief.

“It’s me. Lance! We were rivals. Neck to neck!”

“Okay,” Keith says, making it abundantly clear that he doesn’t remember such a thing. “Sure.”

Katie rolls her eyes at the squawk Lance lets out.

“How long have you been tracking those patterns?” she asks, flipping open a notepad to reveal a Fraunhofer line identical to the one Keith had shown Ryou.

“A year, give or take,” Keith answers, seemingly relieved by the interruption.

“I managed to tune in to alien radio chatter,” Katie says, flipping past the Fraunhofer line. “They kept repeating this one word: _Voltron_.”

“Voltron?” Keith echoes, shooting a glance at Takashi. “Sound familiar?”

Takashi shakes his head, looking just as confused as Ryou feels.

Ryou pinches the bridge of his nose then, brain buzzing.

“So wait, what’s your plan?” he asks.

“There’s something down there,” Keith says, sounding sure of himself. “You saw those drawings.”

“Yeah, but…” Ryou stops, trails off. “What if it’s dangerous? What if something happens?”

He doesn’t mean to cut his glance towards Takashi. His brother looks uncomfortable at the attention everyone fixes on him.

“Well,” Takashi starts, ever the diplomat. “It’s worth checking out. There’s no denying that _something_ is out there.”

“You can’t get involved with this shit, Takashi,” Ryou grumbles, waving his arms towards his brother in a gesture he hopes gets his point across. “You just…you _just_ got back.”

And there it is. All of his fear and worry making itself known in the way his voice cracks.

The other kid, the one with the kind face that Ryou still doesn’t know the name of, clears his throat.

“I’m gonna…yeah,” he finishes lamely, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. Katie and Lance follow behind, leaving Ryou, Takashi, and Keith to stare at each other.

Keith leans back against the counter.

“You’re against this.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Ryou snaps without meaning to. Keith raises a cool brow even though Ryou can see the way his hand curls into a fist. “This is fucking crazy, Keith. You _know_ that.”

“Whatever is out there led us to Shiro,” Keith says, shooting a glance towards Takashi, who looks like a lost puppy. “Maybe it’ll lead us to whoever took him.”

“Keith,” Takashi says then, shaking his head. “The Galra are incredibly strong, not to mention _advanced_. I don’t think there’s anything on Earth that can defeat them.”

“You said they’re trying to take over the universe,” Keith says, rounding on him now. “Are we supposed to stand back and _let_ them?”

“It’s not his battle to fight,” Ryou snarls, shoving Keith away from Takashi. “Not anymore.”

Keith’s expression ranges from pure fury to disappointment to resignation. He shakes his head and doesn’t say another word before he disappears down the hall to the bedroom, slamming the door hard enough to shake the whole place.

“Takashi, you can’t,” Ryou says desperately. “Don’t do this to me.” _Don’t do this to me **again**_.

“…I’m sorry, Ryou,” Takashi says, and Ryou feels like the walls are closing in around him.

“You’re not,” Ryou mutters, stepping back. “You’re _not_.”

He storms out of the shack then, ignoring how the three kids outside jump away from the door when he comes barreling through. They give him guilty looks and take care to look like they _weren’t_ eavesdropping.

He doesn’t say anything, too worked up to do anything but scowl and get into his car. He drives into town and then just keeps going until the very real threat of running out of gas and being stranded in the middle of nowhere has him pulling over to the side of the road.

It’s there that he gets out to scream his frustration at the sky. It doesn’t help a goddamn thing, but it makes him feel better. He screams himself hoarse and wonders why whatever being is up there hates his damn guts so much.

He has an ability, it seems, to lose the people he cares about just when he deludes himself into thinking he has them. His parents, Takashi, and now, _Keith_.

And it sucks. He _hates_ it. But there’s not a goddamn thing he can do. Because Takashi and Keith both having fucking hero complexes, even if they’d never admit it, and Ryou knows the right thing to do is finding any way to stop an alien race from obliterating the universe.

That doesn’t make it suck any less, though. Doesn’t make the ache go away or the anxiety or sense of loss.

But it makes it easier, knowing that even if something does happen, if whatever the fuck this alien shit leads to turns out ugly, Takashi and Keith have each other.

* * *

 

It’s dark by the time Ryou returns to the shack. The kids Takashi and Ryou brought back with them are all knocked out in the living room. Ryou makes his way to his room and shuts the door softly behind him.

Keith’s on his knees, staring out of the window. Ryou settles beside him silently, wracking his brain to think of the right words to say.

They don’t come to him in the end. Keith turns to look at him.

“You’re scared.”

“I’m fucking terrified.”

Keith snorts. “That makes two of us.”

“You’re not going to drop this, are you?”

“I can’t, Ryou,” Keith murmurs. “You’ve seen Shiro. They did something to him. Something horrible.”

“Yeah,” Ryou says. He doesn’t know the full extent of it and decides right then and there that he isn’t sure he wants to. “I know, Keith.”

“You love him.”

“Do you?” Ryou asks before he can stop himself. Regrets it instantly, because hearing Keith say he’s still in love with Takashi is probably the last thing he needs to hear right now.

“I think I always will,” Keith answers after a painfully long moment.

Ryou releases a heavy breath.

“I think you will too.”

Keith gives him an imperceptible look. “You’re in love with me.”

It takes Ryou back to that time last November when he’d said something similar to Keith, when they’d been on that balcony together, when Ryou had kissed him and then convinced himself that it didn’t mean a damn thing.

“Yeah, Keith,” Ryou says. He’s tired, so tired of not feeling anything, that he wants to give himself _this_. “I am.”

Keith doesn’t say anything else. Ryou doesn’t ask him if he loves Ryou too, if their relationship is _something_ instead of _anything_. When Keith gets up, shuffles away and lays down in his sleeping bag, Ryou turns his back to the moon and watches him.

And then, only when Keith is deep asleep and there’s no chance in hell he’ll hear Ryou, does he have the bravery to say:

“Come back to me.”


	7. Chapter 7

Ryou gets up early the next morning, early enough that he considers rolling over and going right back to sleep.

He doesn’t, though. He shuffles to the bathroom, brushes his teeth, shaves the stubble lining his cheeks, showers in water hot enough to sting. His skin’s bright red when he comes out. He towels through his hair, swipes moisture off of his body and pulls on a clean shirt and jeans.

He brews a cup of coffee, goes outside to sit on the porch and stew. He’s surprised to see Katie’s up, arms crossed over her knees and a pensive expression on her face. She starts when Ryou drops down next to her.

“I gave up on Takashi,” Ryou says. Katie looks at him with an arched brow and Ryou shrugs. “The Garrison said he was dead and I believed them.”

Katie doesn’t say anything for a long moment. And then:

“My family’s out there.”

Ryou stares into his coffee, watching as steam curls up from the cup and disappears into the atmosphere.

“That why you’re going with them?”

Katie clenches her jaw. “I’m not giving up on them.”

“Don’t,” Ryou tells her. “You’ll fall apart if you do.”

Katie pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and gives Ryou a searching look.

“Are you…” she trails off, shaking her head. “Never mind. Forget it.”

But Ryou has an idea of what she’d been about to say. He takes a long sip of his coffee, lets it burn its way down his throat and into his gut.

“It’s not like that,” he says. “It never was.”

He’s talking about Keith, of course. Seems that’s the only thing he can think about, really. He’d stayed up late last night, hoping that this whole mess had been some big dream. He’d reached back into his mind, a year ago, and pretends all is right with the world.

Takashi never went to Kerberos and Keith never meant anything to him. Things were simpler when the world worked when that, when there wasn’t anyone to give a damn about other than himself. When he had that obnoxious penthouse, when he’d party all night, when he’d sleep around because it gave him something to do, something to _feel_.

Everything’s too much, now. He’s about to lose his brother all over again, only this time Keith won’t be around to pick up the pieces. No, Keith’s going wherever the hell Takashi is.

And isn’t _that_ something.

“The Garrison banned me for life,” Katie says then. Ryou snorts. “The only reason I’m in now is because they think I’m a boy named Pidge.”

“If it makes you feel better, they banned me too,” he says, even though he’s not quite sure if that’s true or not. “What’d they get you for?”

“Hacking,” Katie says, sounding incredibly smug, and Ryou wishes he could keep the impressed quirk of his brow under wraps. “You?”

“Admiral Sanda’s granddaughter and an empty briefing room.”

“Jesus,” Katie swears, sounding thoroughly disgusted, and Ryou laughs harder than he has in a while. “Are you kidding me?”

“It worked out in the end,” Ryou offers with a shrug. “Don’t think I care too much about space after all.”

Katie hums softly.

“I didn’t believe that bullshit about Kerberos, you know.”

Ryou picks at a loose thread on his pants.

“Neither did Keith. That’s why they booted him. He punched Iverson out.”

Katie looks mildly shocked.

“No one said anything about him after he stopped showing up. People came up with theories, obviously, but we didn’t know that was the reason.”

“I was there,” Ryou tells her. “Saw it for myself.”

“Jesus,” Katie says again. “You don’t think this is a good idea, do you?”

“Oh, of course not,” Ryou says. “But no one’s gonna listen to me. Especially not Takashi.”

Katie gets a somber expression on her face then, something soft that makes something in Ryou’s chest clench.

“Do you think my family’s gonna end up like him?”

“I don’t know,” Ryou says, wishing that he _did_. “Maybe they got lucky.”

Katie hugs her knees to her chest and doesn’t respond. The door creaks open behind them, and Ryou twists to see everyone else is up. Keith’s strapping his gloves onto his hands, jerking his chin towards the hoverbike.

“Figured we should start early,” he says, avoiding Ryou’s eyes.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Katie agrees, standing and brushing sand off her pants.

Katie walks towards the hoverbike, and the other two kids follow after her. It’s Ryou, Takashi, and Keith again, and Ryou tells himself that this isn’t a fucking _goodbye_.

“We’re going to be fine,” Takashi says.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Ryou murmurs halfheartedly.

Takashi pulls him into a hug so tight that there’s barely any room for either of them to breathe.

“I’m sorry,” Takashi says, and Ryou wishes he just _wouldn’t_.

“I know,” he says, not wanting to start anything. The last time his brother left, everyone thought he died. He doesn’t want to think about what’ll happen if Takashi really doesn’t come back this time.

Takashi pats his shoulder and gives him a stunning smile before he steps off the porch. Keith’s next, arms crossed over his chest and squinting at the sun that shines in his eyes. Ryou rakes his gaze over his face, memorizes him, tucks away the image in the safest corner of his mind.

“Be safe out there, kid,” he says, and Keith snorts.

“My name’s not kid,” Keith answers, almost fond. He turns to look at the shack. “Don’t burn the place down. We’ll be back by sunset.”

“Yeah,” Ryou says. His throat’s got a funny lump in it, then, and struggles to swallow past it. “Hey, Keith?”

“What?” Keith asks, turning to face him.

Ryou tests the words in his head a few times, works them out before he finally gets them out into a soft whisper:

“I love you.”

Keith doesn’t respond. Not verbally, at least. He presses a kiss to Ryou’s cheek, one that feels like it’s searing his skin, and then he’s gone. In fact, when Ryou turns around, they’re all gone. There’s dust trailing behind the hoverbike, and Ryou squints until he can see the faint outline of the cave in the distance.

He takes a deep breath and turns his back to it, heading inside the house. He does a whole lot of nothing, too keyed up to sit down and put his attention on something other than that damn cave.

It’s why he’s on his feet on seconds when the shack starts trembling. He thinks for a second it might be an earthquake, but there’s something different about this.

A flash of bright blue light reaches his eye. He throws the front door open, watching as a huge, metallic blue lion races into the sky. He thinks of the cave pictures Keith had showed him and his heart sinks to his stomach.

He gets into the car, drives it as far as the shitty thing will go. He goes the rest of the way by foot, arms pumping hard, pure panic pushing him forward. Just like he feared, there’s a huge gaping hole where the cave once was.

He climbs down, tripping over his own feet, skinning his hands, tearing through the decimated earth. There’s no one when he reaches the bottom, just brown dirt and crumbling rock, sunlight shining on every goddamn inch.

He doesn’t know how the tears start forming, or even when they start falling. He rubs a hand across his face, smearing the moisture and dirt across his skin, and picks his way forward.

That’s when he sees it, a scrap a paper no bigger than his palm. He grabs it, unfurls it and laughs, harsh and bitter when he reads the words.

 _I’ll come back_ , it says, in Keith’s messy, messy scrawl.

Ryou crumples the note up and tosses it away, sinks down onto the ground, and _sobs_.

* * *

 

A lot happens after Takashi and Keith get ejected into space by a robotic lion.

For starters, the Galra Takashi had mentioned invade Earth. That’s actually what brings Takashi back. Funny how that works, huh?

So Earth gets destroyed, and rebuilt, and those purple fluffy aliens get obliterated.  Except for the good ones. Speaking of good ones, Keith’s apparently one of them. Half, at least. His mother’s…well, built like an Amazonian and _fluffy_ (look, he can’t look past the whole furry destructors thing, okay?). But she’s fantastic. Ryou likes Krolia almost as much as he likes her son.

And now, everything’s kind of mellowed out. People still talk about Voltron like they’re the best thing since sliced bread. Makes sense, considering how they saved everyone from an almost certain death.

Well, as many as they _could_. There were casualties, just like any war.

Adam had been one of them. Ryou hadn’t gone to the memorial, but he heard Takashi had. He’d checked Keith’s face to see if any of that jealousy still lingered, but he hadn’t found it. He realized right then and there that Keith was more mature than Ryou ever could be.

He hasn’t really talked to Takashi _or_ Keith since they all worked together to save the world. The one time he had tried to, when Keith had been stuck in the hospital with the rest of the team, he’d stopped in the hall because he could see Takashi’s body slumped in a chair beside Keith’s bed.

Krolia had come up behind him then, two cups of coffee cradled in her hands. She looked surprised, and peered over his shoulder to see what he was staring at.

“He comes every night,” she’d murmured, an affectionate tone coloring her voice. Ryou had instantly felt nauseous. “Falls asleep right beside him too.”

“He’s a good guy,” Ryou had said, and and he remembers hating himself for getting jealous of his brother over _this_. “Always has been.”

And Krolia had smiled, but there was something secretive about it, like she was privy to something Ryou wasn’t.

That something, Ryou found out later, was that Takashi and Keith were _in love_.

He’d thrown up profusely after he heard, and after he scrubbed his face clean of every trace of vomit, he hightailed it to the nearest bar and drowned his sorrows in scotch.

That’s how Keith finds him tonight, actually. He doesn’t know what time it is. Probably soon enough to closing, since he spots the bartender giving him a look practically telling him to wrap his little self-pity session up.

He’s half-slumped over when Keith drops down into the stool beside him without a word. He looks pissed, like he’s about to sock Ryou right then and there. A part of him wonders if this is some crazy dream, like the past year or so was just some elaborate nightmare his mind conjured up to make his life suck more than it usually does.

“Why are you here?” he slurs.

“Get up,” Keith snaps. He slams a handful of bills onto the counter and hefts Ryou’s arm around his shoulder without asking.

Before, Ryou would be scared that the poor kid would keel over if he had to support anyone on him like this. But Keith’s different now. Still hopelessly gone for Takashi, apparently, but he’s taller. Broader. Looks less like he’ll snap in half and more like he’ll snap _someone else_ in half.

So he’s not surprised, really, when Keith basically drags him out of the bar. He sleeps the entire ride home, and only jerks awake when Keith deposits him on something soft. He realizes after a long moment that it’s his own couch, and Keith has taken him back to the shack.

Once _their_ shack.

“Jesus,” Ryou groans, rubbing a hand down his face.

“What the hell is your problem?” Keith grits out.

“What are you talking about?” Ryou asks.

“What am I—” Keith cuts himself off with a dry laugh. It sobers Ryou right up. “You’re fucking pathetic, you know that?”

Ryou sits up, frowning. Keith powers on, arms crossed over his chest.

“Is this…is this about Shiro?” he mutters.

Ryou flinches violently and doesn’t attempt to brush it off.

“Why would it be about Takashi?” he asks, and his voice comes out all rough and low. Keith’s arms fall to his sides.

“I never…I didn’t think that would happen, okay? It just _did_.”

“You were always in love with him. Of course it was going to happen.”

“I didn’t _plan_ for this!” Keith explodes, throwing his arms up. “I didn’t _plan_ to drag you into this!”

“No, it was never you,” Ryou says, laughing and shaking his head. “I’m the one who kissed you. You remember that, kid?”

“Don’t do that,” Keith growls. “Don’t shut me out.”

“You’ve always done that. Why can’t I?”

“Because things are _different_ now!”

“They’re not!” Ryou snarls, standing up so they’re nose to nose. “Takashi has everything, just like he always has. I thought that maybe, just maybe, I’d have _one_ thing that didn’t have some tie to him. But _no_ , that’s not how it worked. You were always fucking _his_ , Keith. Don’t try to bullshit and say you weren’t.”

Keith recoils at that, his eyes growing wide.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Keith whispers. Ryou rakes his fingers through his hair.

“You didn’t.”

Keith looks doubtful, and Ryou rushes to continue before Keith can do something ridiculous like _apologize_.

“I never wanted anything from you because I knew I’d never get it. I just—I never expected that you two would _actually_ work out.”

Keith snorts. “That makes two of us.”

Ryou sighs and drops back onto the couch. Keith follows him after a few seconds and they just _sit_. Ryou stares at the ceiling fan as it goes around and around in circles. He listens to Keith’s soft breathing beside him, waiting for him to speak.

“I wish things were different,” Keith finally says. His voice is quiet, so much so that it almost gets lost in the air around them.

“Nothing would’ve changed,” Ryou insists, keeping his eyes trained on the ceiling. “You guys were made for each other.”

Keith snickers. “What, like fate or something?”

“Something like that,” Ryou mumbles. “You brought him back from the dead. I think that’s more than just loving someone.”

When he looks at Keith, there’s a soft expression on his face. Ryou reaches out and presses his thumb against the scar on Keith’s cheek without thinking. Keith doesn’t stop him.

“Did it hurt?” he asks. Keith shrugs a shoulder.

“Can’t remember. I just wanted to save him.”

“See?” Ryou murmurs. “ _Made for each other_.”

His hand falls away, and he misses the warmth of Keith’s skin almost instantly. But touching him like that feels wrong. He was never Ryou’s, after all, and now he actually _does_ belong to Takashi.

He’s not selfish enough to ruin _that_. Takashi has dealt with more than anyone else on this planet has, probably. He deserves this, even if it makes Ryou die a little inside every time he thinks about it.

Keith stays for a while longer, and they talk about everything and nothing. But eventually, he has to go. Ryou refuses to let himself think he’s going back to _Takashi_.

He follows Keith all the way to the door, where he lingers in the doorway and looks around.

“This place hasn’t changed,” he remarks, sounding like he expected it would.

“No,” Ryou says, even though it _has_ changed, more than he can ever describe.

Physically, it’s the same shack he had discovered all that time ago. But it means something different now. They always say home is where the heart is, but Ryou’s heart doesn’t even belong to him anymore.

Ryou’s heart is standing in front of him, older, wiser, more handsome than he’s ever been, and every inch of him aches for Keith. Probably will ache, for a very, very long time.

“Don’t hide again,” Keith says, breaking Ryou’s train of thought. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other and Ryou realizes he’s waiting for an answer.

“I won’t,” he says, and he honest to God _means_ it.

And then Keith's gone. Not forever, he reminds himself.

Just until next time.


	8. Chapter 8

It’s a sunny November day the second time Ryou finds out his big brother’s getting married.

The wedding invitation is simple. White cardstock with an elegant trim of golden scrolls. Minimalistic but still incredibly beautiful. He holds it in his fingers, hand trembling terribly, as his eyes sweep over the words again and again.

It’s not the invitation itself that’s fucking with his head, really. It’s more the fact that they’d even _want_ him there on their special day.

He’d promised Keith that he’d stick around. Meant it, too, for a while. Told himself he could push his feelings aside, that it wasn’t about him and Keith anymore. The chapter of that book had closed, and a new one had to be written.

But if there’s one thing Ryou’s incapable of, it’s moving on, being self _less_ rather than sel _fish_. He’d been able to ignore his own feelings for a bit, but jealousy always has a way of rearing its ugly head.

Especially when Takashi is involved.

It didn’t help that his newest win over Ryou was Keith.

So Ryou closed himself off. Didn’t answer when Keith would try to pound down his door, when he’d call his phone, leave scathing messages that would probably make a lesser person piss their fucking pants.

Takashi even tried, for a while. But then weeks passed, months, eventually two years. Everything went radio silent on the other end, and Ryou had almost been pleased with himself. He’d be able to sulk in peace until the end of his days.

Until _this_.

“Sir?”

His head jerks up. The mail man’s got a scowl on his face. He jerks his chin towards the line behind Ryou.

“Sorry,” he mutters, gathering up the rest of his mail and leaving the post office.

He’s assaulted with a blast of cold air. Ryou tucks the invitation between a bill and a grocery store flyer before he heads back to the shack. He’s not surprised to see Takashi already there, hands clasped behind his back as he stares contemplatively at the door.

He starts when he hears Ryou’s car rumble in the driveway. Ryou scoops up his mail from the passenger side seat and tucks it under his arm, swinging his keys around his index finger.

“Takashi,” he says crisply.

Takashi’s eyes zero in on the stack.

“I—where have you been?” he asks, stumbling over his words. He rubs the back of his neck. “You just...well, we never got an answer. To _anything_.”

Ryou swallows hard, guilty.

“I’ve been caught up with some things. Haven’t gotten around to getting the mail. Why, you send me something?”

Takashi blows out a slow, even breath.

“Ryou,” he says, tone right on the edge of _pissed beyond belief_ , and Ryou tries his damndest to bite back a groan.

“Like I said. _Caught up_.”

He shoves his key into the lock and elbows the door open. The shack’s still standing strong, but it’s not invincible. The door’s been getting jammed for months, but he just keeps putting off repairing it. Now that there aren’t any threats of Earth suddenly getting destroyed by an alien race, life’s good. He’s got all the time in the world to do whatever he wants.

To be fair, he hadn’t quite fallen back on all of his bad habits. He still drinks to the point where he’s sure his liver’s going to be fucked before he hits thirty, but at least he’s not fucking strangers and pretending like he loves them anymore.

So, honestly, there’s no reason for Takashi to look so thoroughly disappointed in him. He eyes the way his brother hesitates at the doorframe, toes barely touching the edge.

“What?” he asks with a smirk. “You a vampire or something now? Need an invitation to come inside?”

Takashi glares darkly at him but steps through gingerly. The door clicks shut behind him. Ryou throws the mail carelessly onto the counter, and they both watch as the wedding invitation slides out farther than the rest. The ragged envelope gives him away before Ryou can pretend that he doesn’t know exactly why Takashi’s here.

“I tried calling you,” Takashi begins delicately, leaning awkwardly against the arm of the couch. It’s worn, creaking beneath his weight, and Takashi bolts upright like he thinks it’ll collapse beneath him. “Nothing went through.”

“I changed my number.”

“You changed your number?” Takashi echoes, sounding dumbfounded.

“Figured if I was gonna start fresh, I might as well start there,” Ryou murmurs, deciding to finally put away the non-perishables he’d left out on the counter earlier in the week. He shoves a few boxes of pasta into the cupboard and shrugs. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. No one’s trying to get in touch with me.”

“Really,” Takashi drawls dryly, and Ryou almost laughs. Doesn’t, though, because if looks could kill, Takashi would’ve murdered him ten times over.

“So you’re getting married, huh?” he says, pressing his hands flat to the counter and leaning over them. “Congrats. He a keeper this time?”

Takashi doesn’t say anything for a few long moments.

“You hurt him.”

It shouldn’t make him flinch like Takashi’s raised a hand to him. Sure as hell shouldn’t make guilt come surging back into his veins, racing through him. He licks his dry lips and turns back to the groceries, picking at the label on a sauce bottle so he doesn’t have to look Takashi in the eye.

“I didn’t do a damn thing to him.”

“Do you hear yourself right now?” Takashi asks. He’s not raising his voice, not yet, but there’s tension in it, like a rubber band stretched to the point of almost snapping. “You made a promise to him and you _broke_ it.”

Ryou slams the jar down.

“It doesn’t matter. He has you now.”

“Keith cares about you,” Takashi says, rounding the counter so he can stand by Ryou, pin him with a look so hurt, so broken, that it physically pains him to look at him. “ _I_ care about you.”

Ryou slumps against the counter, presses his forehead to the cool surface. It’s a distraction. Not a very good one, but one good enough that he feels like he can fucking _breathe_.

“I know,” his says, voice wobbling, and he clears his throat hastily. “I _know_.”

“Then what happened?”

“It sucked, Takashi,” Ryou mutters into his folded arms. “And I was tired of pretending it didn’t.”

He hears Takashi suck in a breath.

“Do you still…” he trails off, doesn’t finish, but Ryou knows what he’s asking. Knows what’ll it mean if he doesn’t say anything.

Doesn’t make him open his mouth, though. He clams right up, listens to his brother’s careful breaths beside him. He hears Takashi slide down to the ground and Ryou follows after him. They sit shoulder to shoulder, neither daring to look at the other.

“I don’t think I trusted myself with him,” Ryou says, once he can finally string the words together.

“What do you mean?”

“Before you left. You said he had me.”

“He still does.”

“He _did_ ,” Ryou corrects, avoiding his brother’s gaze at all costs. “Things changed.”

“They haven’t, not really.”

“You’re an idiot,” Ryou says, fondly, and shakes his head. “He’s got you now. He doesn’t need me.”

“What happened?” Takashi asks. Ryou chances a glance at him and sees that his eyebrows are furrowed. His knees are pulled to his chest and he’s got his hands resting idly on them. Takashi looks different now, has been different ever since he got back from space, but it’s never been more apparent than now.

He can’t remember the last time his brother looked so unsure, so scared, so _changed_.

“With what?”

“With you and Keith.”

Ryou almost chokes on his spit.

“You don’t want to know about that.”

Takashi shrugs.

“Keith already told me.”

“Then why are you asking me about it?”

“Because I want to hear it from you.”

Ryou stretches one leg out, rests an arm on his knee and knocks his head back against the cabinets behind him.

“When did he tell you?”

“When we were up in space,” Takashi murmurs. “After we fought.”

“You hurt him,” Ryou says, quiet, thinking of the pink scar permanently etched into Keith’s skin.

Takashi’s eyes slip shut. “I never meant to. That wasn’t me.”

“I know.”

Silence presses in around them. Ryou sucks in a heavy breath.

“We didn’t talk for a while after the launch. He wasn’t my responsibility.”

“What changed?”

Ryou snorts.

“You died.”

Takashi presses his lips into a thin line. Ryou pushes on.

“I went to the Garrison. Kept telling myself it wasn’t true. Keith was already there, raising hell. He punched Iverson out and they booted him. Might’ve banned him for life, now that I think about it.”

Takashi doesn’t laugh when Ryou does.

“How’d you two end up here?” Takashi asks curiously, his eyes roaming around the shack.

“I brought him back with me,” Ryou says. “We were both vulnerable, I guess, and shit just _happened_. He left after and I thought I wouldn’t see him after that. But then he showed up again, and I convinced him to stay. We moved out here and lived happily ever after. For a bit. You know what happens next.”

He doesn’t mean to sound so bitter about it, but it worms into his voice before he can stop it.

“I’m sorry,” Takashi whispers. Ryou shakes his head.

“For what? He always wanted you. Even back when you were with Adam. It was always gonna be _you_.”

“But you loved him.”

“Yeah, I did,” Ryou says, getting up. “Look where that got me.”

He turns to look at Takashi. His brother’s still on the ground, still looking at him like Ryou suddenly has all the answers to the universe inside of him or something.

“Did you get what you wanted?” Ryou asks.

Takashi stands up slowly.

“Was it because of me?”

“What?” Ryou asks, confused.

“Is that why you did all this?” he says, gesturing vaguely around them. “Shutting yourself off, staying away?”

Ryou scowls. “Not everything’s about you.”

Takashi flinches.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

Ryou grinds his teeth together.

“Did you come out here to rub salt in the wound?” he asks, pointing at the wedding invitation. “You’ve already done enough of that.”

“I’m not asking you to do it for me,” Takashi mumbles. “I’m asking for you to do it for _Keith_.”

The name hits him, hard, right in the heart. Ryou almost places a hand against it, just to check that it’s still beating, that he’s not going to suddenly drop dead. He doesn’t.

Instead, he gives Takashi the nastiest glare he can manage.

“I don’t owe him anything,” he says.

He turns his back to his brother, starts sorting out his shit, doing whatever he can to look busy. He hears Takashi sigh, walk to the door, open and close it behind him.

He hears the silence his brother’s departure leaves behind and pretends it’s not slowly crawling beneath his skin.

* * *

 

Takashi showing up to his door ends up bringing others. Lance and his alien girlfriend (apparently she’s a good alien, not the kind that’d been trying to kill every living thing in the universe), Hunk (Ryou honest to god feels bad that he never learned the kid’s name until recently), and even _Katie_.

She’s the most violent of the three, considering how she’s the one who socks him in the jaw as soon as he gets the door open.

“What the fuck?” he asks, cupping his jaw, and Katie shouldn’t look nearly as pleased as she does.

“You know what that was for,” she says.

He lets her in only to prevent any further physical harm. She sits on the couch and watches as he leans against the counter with a packaged ice pop against his jaw.

“Why are you here?”

Her expression softens then, by the slightest bit, and something almost like dread fills his stomach.

“The wedding’s today,” she says, and Ryou wonders if the floor’s about to split open and the Earth will swallow him whole.

He glances towards the drawer next to the fridge, the one where he’d shoved the wedding invitation into because he’d been too chicken to throw it away. Some part of it kept clinging to it, kept hoping it’d turn out to be a dream.

“So, what, you’re the last line of defense?” Ryou asks, scowling. “Takashi knows I’m not coming.”

“So does Keith.”

“Great,” Ryou says, clapping his hands together. “Looks like your work’s done here.”

Katie shakes her head.

“Someone once told me that I shouldn’t give up on my family,” she says, and dread fills him when he realizes where she’s going with this. “I never thought I’d see the day where he _did_.”

Katie gets up and walks towards the door. She pauses, hand on the knob, waiting for him to say something, anything.

Ryou doesn’t.

Katie turns to face him.

“You’re making a mistake,” she says.

And then she’s gone, just like everyone else in his life.

Ryou tells himself he’s not going to let her get to him, that none of this shit involves him anymore. He doesn’t have to do anything, doesn’t have to go anywhere he doesn’t want to.

It’s late now, almost eleven, and he curls up in his cot and stares at the ceiling. He never moved out of the spare bedroom even though the main one’s open. He still, embarrassingly enough, thinks of that as _Keith’s_.

Keith.

He doesn’t mean to think about him, not really, but once Ryou starts he doesn’t know how to stop. He thinks about his face, how warm he’d been, how he’d stayed even when Ryou had been sure Keith wanted to leave.

He thinks about him happy. Thinks about him happy with _Takashi_ , and wonders when the idea of them will stop feeling like a punch to the gut.

He’s not sure what gets him up, what has him walking to the kitchen and holding the wedding invitation in his hand. He’s got it memorized, down to the date, the place, the little RSVP at the bottom.

He’s changed into a pair of jeans and the nicest shirt he owns before he can stop himself. He makes a pitstop in the kitchen for a shot of liquid courage in the form of the whiskey he’d stashed under the sink.

And then he’s in the car, and he’s driving, and he doesn’t stop until he’s in a parking lot lit by a hundred different street lamps.

In the distance, he can faintly make out the mountains. But in front of that, there’s pavement. A grand fountain, gently trickling water. Little fairy lights everywhere, like something out of a movie. Flowers arranged in colorful bouquets, white chairs lined up towards a white arch covered in vines.

He gets out of the car and walks past all of that to the side of the church beside him. There’s laughing, music, with someone singing drunkenly off-key. More laughter.

Ryou swallows hard and leans against the wall beside him. It doesn’t take long for him to find Keith. There’s something carefree about him, something warm and inviting that makes Ryou’s toes curl in his tight, uncomfortable, barely-polished dress shoes.

He’s being twirled around in a circle by his mother, cheeks flushed, laughing loud. The light feels softer here, a glow that seems to accentuate just how goddamn breathtaking Keith really is. Krolia’s smiling so wide that Ryou wonders if her cheeks will split.

When they finish, she pulls him into a tight hug, cups his cheeks and says something against his ear. Maybe _I hope you’re happy_ , or _I love you, congratulations_.

Ryou’s never been to a wedding before. He doesn’t have anything to compare this to him, but a part of him feels almost regretful that he missed so much. Everyone looks so happy, so at peace.

Krolia releases Keith, and that’s the moment he sees Ryou. He freezes, wondering if he should turn around, walk away and pretend he was never here in the first place.

But Keith doesn’t give him the opportunity to do that. He walks towards him, ducking between people, making his way across the pavement, an unreadable expression on his face.

“You came,” he says, slowly, looking at Ryou like he’s seeing a ghost.

Ryou swallows hard.

“It’s my brother’s wedding,” he says, glancing back at the dancefloor. Krolia waves at him and he manages a smile. “You guys picked all this out?”

Keith shakes his head, looking almost bashful.

“We had help.”

“You’re not mad at me.”

He doesn’t know why he says it. Keith frowns, just so, before he shakes his head.

“No reason to be,” he mutters. He almost crosses his arms but catches himself at the last minute. “You were upset. I know that.”

“So were you.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Keith says.

Ryou looks at him, really looks at him, and feels something wrap around his heart and _squeeze_.

“You must be sick of dancing by now,” he says, managing a tiny grin. “Otherwise, I think I would’ve asked you if you had time for little old me.”

Keith laughs, the sound breathy and hardly audible.

“I might have one more in me,” he says.

He holds his hand out. Ryou grabs it, looking at Keith’s left hand when he feels something pinch his skin. Keith’s wedding band looks like its glowing against his skin.

He doesn’t lead them to the crowd. They dance in the shadows by the church, in the grass where everything feels cold except for the points where they bodies touch. Ryou moves them in a slow circle, his fingers intertwined tightly with Keith’s. There’s a frightening moment where he wonders if letting go means Keith will slip away from him forever.

He squashes the thought dead.

“He’s going to make you happy,” Ryou tells him, knowing that it’s true.

“He already has,” Keith murmurs, sounding so _gone_ for Takashi.

“One day,” Ryou continues, struggling to get the words out, looking into Keith’s eyes and trying not to feel _too damn much_ , “This won’t hurt anymore.”

“I know,” Keith says, hardly louder than a whisper.

“Ryou?”

Ryou looks over Keith’s shoulder, where Takashi’s standing, all dropped jaw and wide eyes. He lets go of Keith and watches as they naturally drift towards each other.

“You came,” Takashi says in disbelief.

Ryou tucks his hands into his pockets and shrugs.

“It’s not every day your big brother gets married,” he says. He grins even though he feels the exact moment his heart breaks, right around when he catches the soft look Takashi gives Keith. “Hey. Be good to him.”

He jerks his chin in Keith’s direction, who smirks and playfully rolls his eyes.

Takashi chuckles. “I will.”

“I know you will,” Ryou says. He lets out a heavy breath. “I’m happy for you. Honestly.”

“Thank you,” Keith says, right as Takashi winds his arm around his waist and presses a kiss to the side of his head. “It means a lot.”

Ryou swallows hard, shaking his head.

“Thank you for staying,” he says.

He walks away then, just keeps going and going until he reaches his car. He settles inside and stares up at the night sky, sprinkled with stars.

He catches another glimpse of Keith and Takashi then. They’re still wrapped up in each other, smiling wide, eyes on no one but each other. Ryou expects the jealousy to flood over him in a tidal wave, but that doesn’t happen. There’s only this warmth in chest, something that makes him feel vaguely content. And when he puts his car into gear and drives away, he doesn’t look back at them. Not once.

Keith found his happiness. It’s time for Ryou to find his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just wanna say this chap was written prior to s8 but i just binged it and WHAT THE FUCK S8
> 
> anyway lol thanks for reading this little fic guys, it was a w i l d ride and i never expected it to turn into all of this. i didn't think anyone would read this but then all of you came along????
> 
> right so thanks again really <333


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